Cycling: Operation bloodletting has arrived in cycling. With Stefan Denifl and Georg Preidler, two professionals from Austria have confessed to blood doping. This should end their careers.
Denifl & Preidler admit blood doping
The doping network around the Erfurt doctor Mark Schmidt has also reached cycling. As has now become known, the authorities have the 31-year-old Stefan Denifl already arrested on March 1 and intensively interrogated. After the Austrian admitted blood doping, he was released again. A short time later, the 28-year-old reported Georg preidler and confessed by self-disclosure to having also carried out the practice of blood doping. He recently won one Stage in the Tour of Poland.
George Preidler:
"I made a fool of myself and I want to be honest. That was the biggest mistake of my life. All I can say is living with the knowledge of cheating in the back of your mind is hell. I couldn't take it anymore."
Preidler resigns, Denifl is without a contract
Georg preidler I only had the blood drawn at the end of 2018, no blood return. But even this process is punishable according to the new anti-doping law. The French team Groupama - FDJ immediately accepted the resignation of the professional. Stefan Denifl however, was without a contract anyway after his Aqua Blue Sport team disbanded at the end of last season and he himself terminated his new contract with the CCC team for personal reasons. In 2017 he won the Tour of Austria and the Queen stage of the Vuelta a Espana.
Bloodletting Operation:
The doping network around the Erfurt doctor Mark Schmidt
On February 27, 2019 in Erfurt and in Seefeld under the alias Bloodletting Operation Doping raids carried out. Due to the suspicion of blood doping at the Ski World Championships in Seefeld/Innsbruck, the police arrested and interrogated several people. At first, the professionals concerned were only cross-country skiers. The Austrians Dominik Baldauf and Max Hauke, the Estonians Andreas Veerpalu and Karel Tammjärv and the Kazakh Alexei Poltoranin were arrested. Finally, the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office announced that the German sports physician Mark Schmidt was taken into custody. The doctor who was already responsible for the Gerolsteiner cycling team is said to have stored around 40 blood bags with code names in his practice in Erfurt. Suspicious centrifuges and files on the computer were also secured. This scandal is now being compared to the Fuentes doping scandal, also known as Operación Puerto.
Georg Preidler : the position of the cyclists' team Groupama-FDJ
— Équipe Cycliste Groupama-FDJ (@GroupamaFDJ) March 4, 2019