Doping investigators have developed new evidence and are therefore testing old samples again. The focus is on cycling, especially the Tour de France of 2016 and 2017. It could also be about customers of a German sports doctor.
The Tour de France 2017 is the focus of renewed tests of old doping samples. Improved procedures should make it possible to prove a means that was not yet detectable at the time. “Thanks to new information, we have identified relevant samples and carried out the first analyzes,” said the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation (CADF) to the Belgian newspaper Het Nieuwsblad.
The international cycling association UCI had commissioned the CADF to examine samples from 2016 and 2017. The investigation is a result of the “Operation Phlebotomy”, in which a doping network around Erfurt sports doctor Mark S. was excavated in 2019. S. was arrested last spring, for investigators he is considered the central figure in what has been the largest known German doping network in top-class sport according to the sports show. The following investigations would have indicated the unspecified doping agent, which can only be proven using new methods.
The 2017 tour of France in particular is now being examined. “During this time there were a number of banned substances that were not available on the regular market and for which there were no optimal detection methods in the laboratories. These methods have since been improved,” said Peter Van Eenoo from the doping laboratory in Ghent to the newspaper.
According to the Munich public prosecutor’s office, Mark S.’s network included 23 athletes from eight European countries, including some cyclists such as Danilo Hondo and the Austrian Stefan Denifl. Only at the end of February did the Swiss ex-cyclist Pirmin Lang admit that he had banned funds before his career ended in 2017. Georg Preidler, Alessandro Petacchi, Kristijan Koren, Borut Bozic and Kristijan Durasek were among the customers. In addition, according to ARD, two other German cycling professionals were also customers.
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