Jumbo-Visma denied that Tom Dumoulin and Primosz Roglic were involved in the Adelrath doping scandal.

The German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung (opens in new tab) reported on Tuesday that two of the team's star players were presented to people under interrogation to identify possible members of a doping ring led by Dr. Mark Schmidt in a "30 to 40 " in a portfolio of photographs, the report said.

When questioned by Cycling News, the team claimed that they had never been contacted by the Munich DA or any other investigative agency. Through the team, Dumoulin and Roglic also stated that they had never been contacted as part of Operation Adelrath.

Similarly, both players claimed that they had never been contacted by Schmidt or his associates.

Neither Dumoulin nor Roglic knew why their faces were the subject of the investigation.

This may have resulted from the testimony of Georg Preidler, who confessed to being part of a doping ring and received a four-year cycling ban and a suspended prison sentence.

According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the Austrian expressed concerns to investigators about both Dumoulin, who rode with Team Sunweb from 2013 to 2017, and Roglic.

According to the paper, Pridler's confession included insinuations about a 2017 training camp that he wanted to attend at his own expense but was not allowed to attend. He said that shortly after Dumoulin won the Giro d'Italia, he wondered why the riders who participated were doing so well.

When contacted by Cycling News, a Team Sunweb spokesman explained: "The selection of athletes for the high altitude training camps is determined by the development plan of the athlete concerned. Therefore, the five athletes selected for the Giro that year concentrated on other development points and were not selected for the High Altitude Training Camp. Georg did not attend the high altitude training camp because there were more important elements to his development than concentrating on purely physical development at the camp.

"The biggest priority was for him to be able to commit to the goal and the team's approach, to develop his credibility not only in the race (committing to the tactical plan) but also off-race (working with the team staff). We thought that adding a few more races leading up to the Giro that required more intensive work with teammates and staff both on and off the bike would be more beneficial to Georg's overall development than the high altitude camp."

As for Roglic, Pridler's confession also refers to his career change from international ski jumper to professional cyclist and the recent success of the Slovenian athlete.

"I never quite understood how you could go from ski jumper to winner in a three-week tour," he reportedly said, with the word "presumably" added in parentheses.

Slovenians Borut Bozic and Kristijan Koren were both expelled as part of Operation Adelas, and Milan Erzen, coach of the Bahrain McLaren team and former coach of Roglic on the Adria team, has repeatedly linked Mark Schmidt He has denied it.

Others involved in the investigation include Stefan Denifl, Kristijan Duracek, Alessandro Petacchi, and Danilo Hondo.

Operation Adelrath ("Operation Bloodletting") became public knowledge in February 2019 when Austrian police raided the Nordic Ski World Championships and then German police raided Schmidt's clinic in Erfurt. Blood bags and other doping equipment were found on the premises of the former doctor of Gerolsteiner and Milram's team.