Foldable Bikes Party: Austrian doping: A complete history of Operation Aderlass

Friday 24 May 2019

Austrian doping: A complete history of Operation Aderlass

http://bit.ly/2VQ1nlD

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite cycling's efforts to clean up the sport with the Athlete Biological Passport, intelligence-led doping controls, the UCI's 'independent' anti-doping body the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation and attempts to shift the sport's culture, there will always be those who will break the rules for personal gain. And so it was of little surprise when Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office raids on the Nordic World Ski Championships in February 2019 had a link to pro cycling.

The investigators with Operation Aderlass (or 'bloodletting' in English) tracked a doping scheme from 2011 through to the arrests in February 2019 of nine individuals, five of whom were skiers from Kazakhstan, Estonia and Austria. Operation Aderlass comes 13 years after the infamous Spanish inquiry Operacion Puerto, and a decade on from the more closely related HumanPlasma scandal and Mantova investigations.

In a coordinated raid on a clinic in Erfurt, Austria on February 27, 2019, investigators raided an illegal doping laboratory with doping preparations, blood bags, blood transfusions and a centrifuge and arrested a German physician with ties to the former pro team Gerolsteiner.

It was none other than Mark Schmidt, formerly a team doctor for Gerolsteiner and Milram who had been named in 2009 by Bernhard Kohl as the supervisor of team doping practices. Kohl was banned and exited the sport in disgrace, but an Austrian court blocked proceedings against Schmidt in 2010. Even so, at that time, UCI anti-doping rules did not apply to team doctors or staff, allowing Schmidt to continue to work with athletes.

Kohl accuses former Gerolsteiner doctor of doping involvement - October 12, 2009
Court stops Kohl's claims against former team doctor - January 9, 2010

The first cyclist to confess to blood doping under the scheme was Stefan Denifl, who had signed with the CCC Team and, troublingly, had no 'red flags' on his biological passport. Soon after, Stefan Preidler (Groupama-FDJ) admitting to having extractions. The UCI suspended both riders and their colleagues denounced them, while others questioned the effectiveness of the biological passport.

After the first round of outrage was cleared, the state prosecutor Kai Gräber warned ominously that there were "more chapters to be written" in the investigation.