Thursday, September 23, 2021
Trouble about “Operation Bloodletting”
The son of cycling legend is banned for a long time
The former professional cyclist Björn Thurau will end his career at the end of 2019, a comeback is now out of the question: the son of the cycling legend Didi Thurau received a huge ban because of “several doping-related issues”. The results from a decade are to be canceled.
The National Anti-Doping Agency (Nada) has banned former professional cyclist Björn Thurau for nine years and six months “for several violations of anti-doping regulations”. It concerns, among other things, violations in the use or attempted use, possession, placing on the market or the administration of prohibited substances for doping purposes in cycling, as emerged from the communication. Thurau ended his active career at the end of 2019.
The 33-year-old’s suspension begins on the day of the decision, which according to Nada was made on August 19. The voluntarily recognized six months since the provisional suspension on March 9th should therefore be taken into account. All competition results in Thurau between December 21, 2010 and March 9, 2021 should be canceled, so that medals, points and prizes will also be withdrawn. In February, Nada had started investigations against the ex-professional cyclist. Thurau could not be reached for a comment at first.
He was noticed in the context of “Operation Aderlass” and in the criminal trial against the doctor Mark S. Among other things, he was charged with police questioning of the cyclist Pirmin Lang in Switzerland. According to its own statements, Nada received information from Antidoping Switzerland and the Munich public prosecutor’s office “with regard to several doping-relevant facts of the athlete in a period from 2011 to 2014, which is not statute-barred under sports law”.
Thurau’s father Dietrich is one of the most successful athletes in German cycling history. On his Tour de France debut in 1977, the then 22-year-old won the prologue and subsequently wore the yellow jersey for 15 days. In 1976 he had already won the prologue and four stages at the Vuelta. In 1980 and 1987 he was excluded from the current tour because of proven doping, and in 1985 because he had beaten up an official. After the end of his career, Thurau confessed to the abuse of performance-enhancing agents: “We all used to be doping,” he said in 2007 to the “Lübecker Nachrichten”.