By Robert on Sunday, 01 November 2009
Category: Uncategorised

Andreas Klöden buys out of doping investigation

This sounds truly bizarre.  Former T-mobile cyclist Andreas Klöden (Astana), who has been under investigation for involvement in a blood doping ring (following the 2006 case of Patrik Sinkewitz).  However, this investigation is now at an end.  Cycling news reports (Klöden to pay fine in Freiburg clinic doping case):

A spokesman for the public prosecutor in Bonn said that, in return for the payment, the district court will stop proceedings for sporting fraud against the 34-year-old. The payment, said to be 25,000 euros by the German magazine Focus, is not considered an admission of guilt  under German law.

This all seems quite "interesting".  Whether or not Klöden is guilty, one assumes that there must be something that links him to blood doping activities for him to have been investigated in the first place.  But to be able to pay a fine to end the investigation seems plain barmy, particularly when it isn't associated with an admission of guilt. 

I guess there is something I don't understand here (maybe it's a fine for past non-cooperation?), but as reported, it does raise eyebrows particularly in the light of the inactivity in the Spanish investigation of the Operacion Puerto blood doping ring.

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