Sporting Digest: Skiing

Hermann Maier, the Austrian Olympic gold-medal skier, is severing his ties with Bern Pansold, a former East German doctor convicted of administering performance-enhancing drugs to athletes. Maier denies any involvement with banned substances, saying that he had hired Pansold privately as a performance analyst.

The Canadian downhiller Ed Podivinsky suffered a potentially season-ending knee injury yesterday during practice for the weekend's back-to-back World Cup races at Valgardena, Italy. The 28-year-old has suspected ligament damage.