"I'm probably going to ruin all of my relationships, but I just couldn't have gone on living with this lie," Mr Kärp told daily Õhtuleht.

"With my best performances in World Cup races I had reached the global top 20, but I saw and felt that this was absolutely not enough to achieve what I wanted," he continued. "I thought that with the help of [blood doping] I could reach the global top ten."

Mr Kärp said that he came in contact with Mark Schmidt via Mr Alaver. "I myself did not seek out this opportunity," he confirmed.

Team Haanja website down

As of Tuesday morning, the homepage for Team Haanja, the ski team of three skiers implicated in the recent doping scandal, is also down.

Visitors to the site are met with an error page that reads: "Page not found. This page at is either deleted or the link directing here was broken."

Karel Tammjärv, Andreas Veerpalu and Algo Kärp, all of whom have admitted to doping, belonged to Team Haanja, the ski coach of which was Anti Saarepuu.

The most recent post on Team Haanja's Facebook page dates back to 23 February, before the doping scandal broke, noting that Mr Tammjärv earned 27th place in a recent skiathlon event.

After the doping scandal broke, Toomas Annus, Team Haanja's biggest financial sponsor over the years, announced that he would no longer be supporting pro skiing.