21 athletes linked to German doctor doping scandal

On Wednesday, as reported by the BBC, Munich’s state prosecutor Kai Graeber said the 21 athletes tied to the doping scandal are from three winter and two summer sports from 2011 to 2019. “There are three-figure cases of blood being taken out and then being reintroduced worldwide, in Germany, Austria, Italy, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Croatia, Slovenia and Hawaii,” Graeber said.

The scandal began following the 2019 Nordic World Ski Championships in February, where one Kazakh, two Austrian and two Estonian athletes where arrested. Austrian police say the alleged doping ring was based in Erfurt, Germany, and it’s “strongly suspected of carrying out blood doping of elite athletes in order to improve their performances in national and international competitions and to gain illegal profit from this.”

The investigation is currently ongoing, and no details on the names of the athletes or their sports are available at this time.