Police bust doping ring during Skiing World Championships

VIENNA: Austrian police said on Wednesday they had carried out a series of arrests and raids along with police in Germany in a crackdown on an “internationally active doping network”.Some of the police action was centred on the Austrian resort of Seefeld, where the Nordic skiing world championships are currently in progress.Markus Gandler from the Austrian Ski Association told ORF television that two cross-country skiers from the Austrian team, Dominik Baldauf and Max Hauke, were among those who had been arrested.One Kazakh and two Estonian athletes were also held in the raids, Austria’s Federal Criminal Police Office said in a statement. Austrian police say the doping ring was based in Erfurt in Germany and is “strongly suspected of carrying out blood doping of elite athletes in order to improve their performances in national and international competitions and to gain illegal profit from this”. A forty-year-old sports doctor, named as ‘Mark S’, is thought by police to have been a central figure in the doping ring and was arrested along with an alleged accomplice. Nine people were arrested in total and 16 properties searched as part of the crackdown, called “Operation Bloodletting” by police.Cycling ‘doping doctor’ gets reduced sentence on appeal: A former French cycling medical advisor received a 12-month suspended prison sentence on Wednesday for inciting amateur riders to cheat with drugs. Bernard Sainz, alias “Dr Mabuse”, has spent years embroiled in scandals over encouraging doping and illegally practicing medicine.The 75-year-old, who describes himself as an alternative medicine therapist, had initially been sentenced to nine months in jail in September 2017 and was told to pay a 20,000 euro ($22,600) fine. But an appeal verdict, announced on Wednesday, saw the change in sentence and the fine reduced to 2,000 euros. “I was expecting to be let off, plain and simple... I can’t be satisfied considering these are non-existent deeds in a doping affair,” Sainz said after the verdict. “This obstinacy is getting to be very painful, especially when you’re 75,” he added, speaking of the prosecution.At the appeal in December, the prosecution had demanded a heavier sentence against Sainz for engaging in doping between 2008 and 2010, with prosecutor Marc Faury saying that “sport becomes much less so when he (Sainz) is involved”.

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