Cyclist Stefan Denifl gets jail term, huge fine for doping fraud | Sticky Bottle

Stefan Denifl celebrates winning stage 17 of La Vuelta in 2017 when riding for Irish ProConti team Aqua Blue Sport. He had already been stripped of that result, and all results since mid 2014, after he was banned for doping for four years. And now he has been convicted of commercially defrauding both IAM Cycling and Aqua Blue Sport due to his doping

Stefan Denifl, who previously admitted doping during his time with IAM Cycling and Irish team Aqua Blue Sport, has had a two-year prison term imposed by a court in Austria as well as a €349,000 fine for defrauding the two teams.

However, some 16 months of the two-year jail sentence has been suspended. While that leaves eight months of a sentence, that punishment is not yet final and Denifl could serve time on an electronic tag rather than in a jail.

The court in Innsbruck, where the sanctions were imposed on him, heard the teams who employed him had no knowledge of what he was doing. Denifl has admitted he doped independently of the teams he competed for and without their knowledge.

An unnamed representative from one of his former teams said in court evidence he had no plans to claim back the money paid to the rider. However, the team representative said Denifl would not have had a contract if his doping had been known about.

IAM Cycling and Aqua Blue Sport were treated by the legal system in Austria as victims of Denifl’s fraud and the charge he was convicted of is based on the two teams being his victims.

Stefan Denifl, then riding for IAM Cycling, is first to the summit of Ghisallo during Il Lombardia 2016, when his doping was underway almost two years according to the findings of the investigation into him (Photo: Claudio Peri)

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After spending two years with Aqua Blue Sport, Denifl signed a new contract with CCC Team at the end of 2018. Though that contract was terminated before it commenced, the team later said its tests on the rider showed no evidence of any doping.

Denifl’s involvement in doping, and the fact he was being investigated under Operation Aderlass – into blood doping in Austria and Germany – only emerged in early 2019, several months after his CCC Team contract was terminated for "personal reasons".

The Austrian rider admitted he had doped, with the help of Mark Schmidt. German doctor Schmidt is the main focus of Operation Aderlass for his role in doping skiers, cyclists and other athletes.

Denifl faced a charge of having commercially defrauded
the teams he rode for during his time doping – IAM Cycling and Aqua Blue Sport –
by securing contracts from them and being paid by them while secretly doping.

Denifl was also accused of a second fraud offence which related to an allegation he had tried to hide money while under investigation. However, he denied that charge and said he had withdrawn the money to buy gold and Bitcoin. He was acquitted of that charge.

Denifl (33) was banned for doping for four years in June, 2019, and his results from June, 2014, onwards were cancelled. Those results, unfortunately, included some of Aqua Blue Sport’s biggest results; namely the Tour of Austria final yellow jersey in 2017 and his win on stage 17 of the La Vuelta during the same year.