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 surrounding Erfurt-based doctor Mark Schmidt has also reached the world of cycling. As has now come to light, authorities arrested 31-year-old Stefan Denifl on March 1st and subjected him to intensive questioning. After the Austrian admitted to blood doping, he was released. Shortly afterward, 28-year-old Georg Preidler came forward and confessed to also having engaged in blood doping. He recently won a stage at 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 only had a blood sample taken at the end of 2018, not a blood transfusion. However, even this procedure is punishable under the new anti-doping law. The French team Groupama-FDJ immediately accepted the professional cyclist's retirement. Stefan Denifl, on the other hand, was already without a contract after his team Aqua Blue Sport dissolved at the end of last season and he himself terminated his new contract with the CCC team for personal reasons. He won the Tour of Austria and the queen stage of the Vuelta a España in 2017.
Bloodletting Operation:
The doping network around the Erfurt doctor Mark Schmidt
On February 27, 2019, doping raids were carried out in Erfurt and Seefeld under the codename Operation Aderlass . Based on suspicions of blood doping on the sidelines of the Ski World Championships in Seefeld/Innsbruck, police arrested and interrogated several individuals. Initially, the affected professional athletes were only cross-country skiers. Those arrested included Austrians Dominik Baldauf and Max Hauke, Estonians Andreas Veerpalu and Karel Tammjärv, and Kazakh Alexei Poltoranin. Subsequently, the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office announced that German sports physician Mark Schmidt had also been taken into custody. The doctor, who had previously worked with the Gerolsteiner cycling team, is alleged to have stored around 40 blood bags, labeled with code names, in his Erfurt practice. Suspicious centrifuges and files on his computer were also seized. 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