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| - Former Austrian long-distance skiing and biathlon coach Walter Mayer on Friday received a 15-month suspended sentence for supplying doping products as part of the "Aderlass" network. The Innsbruck court found Mayer guilty of playing a central role in building up a large international client base of athletes to whom he supplied doping products, including EPO and growth hormones. The verdict is not final. Mayer, 63, had pleaded partially guilty and waived his right to appeal. Mayer had already been involved in doping scandals that implicated Austria at the 2002 Salt Lake City and 2006 Turin Olympic Games. He was charged in the wake of a spectacular police raid at the Nordic World Skiing Championships in the Austrian resort of Seefeld in February, 2019. The operation led to the dismantling of a doping ring organised by German doctor Mark Schmidt, who was also arrested. The network, dubbed Aderlass, the German for "blood letting", supplied doping products to more than 20 athletes, particularly cross-country skiers and cyclists, from several European countries, according to the German investigators in charge of the investigations. Former Austrian cross-country skier Johannes Duerr sparked the investigation when he confessed to doping on German television in 2019, he received a suspended sentence in January. He named Mayer and Schmidt during his trial. bg/smk/dif/pb/dj
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