According to the "Esslinger Zeitung" newspaper (opens in new tab), Georg Preidler was convicted of sports fraud in Innsbruck District Court on Wednesday and sentenced to 12 months in prison for his involvement in a blood doping ring that was exposed in Operation Adelrath in 2019. He was sentenced to a suspended sentence and a fine of €2,880. The sentence is still subject to appeal.

In addition to finding Preidler guilty of fraud, the court also fined an unnamed former player €6,000 for his connection to a man who supplied illegal substances to Preidler.

Operation Adelrath first came to light last February when authorities entered athletes performing blood transfusions during an investigation into the Nordic Ski World Championships. German investigators then targeted an Erfurt garage associated with alleged ringleader, former Milram team doctor Mark Schmidt, and discovered 40 blood bags in storage.

Preidler, 30, admitted that he took blood twice in 2018, but denied reinjecting the blood, saying he acted "out of pure curiosity" and wanted to show Schmidt "how it works in the sport."

"My decision to blood dope was foolish and fundamentally wrong. I regret it," Pridler said in January.

Schmidt is charged with violating drug laws and anti-doping rules. His trial is scheduled to be held in September.

German authorities have confirmed that 21 athletes from five different sports and eight different countries were involved in the doping scheme.

Preidler and compatriot Stefan Denifle were the first to confess their involvement. The UCI subsequently suspended them and Kristijan Dulasek, Kristijan Koren, Borut Bozic, Alessandro Petacchi, and mountain biker Kristina Kolman-Forstner.

After the World Championships were held in Innsbruck in 2018 and the UCI suspended him because Pridler was part of the Austrian team for the road race and time trial, Innsbruck prosecutors charged him with fraud. They alleged that he defrauded the team, race organizers, and sponsors by resorting to blood doping.

Preidler denies doping before 2018, but his former Team Sunweb team has threatened to sue him for damages if he doped during the 2017 season when he supported Tom Dumoulin in winning the Giro d'Italia.

The Edelrath case raises questions about the effectiveness of the UCI's Biological Passport program. Longitudinal blood tests were designed to detect the effects of blood boosters such as EPO and autotransfusions, which are difficult to detect directly.

According to CCC team manager Jim Ochowicz, who had signed Denifle to a contract for the 2019 season before the Austrian abruptly terminated his contract, there were no red flags in Denifle's passport.

The UCI disqualified Denifle's results from 2014-2019 and voided only his 2018 and 2019 results from the Pride Ra record. Disqualifications generally apply only to periods of anti-doping rule violations.

Dulasek lost results from late 2016 through 2019, Bozich and Collen from 2012, and Petacchi from 2012 through 2013.