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BFF-41
FRANCE-DOPING-CYCLING-TRIAL
French cycling ‘doping doctor’ gets reduced sentence on appeal
CAEN, France, Feb 27, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A former French cycling medical
advisor received a 12-month suspended prison sentence on Wednesday for
inciting amateur riders to cheat with drugs.
Bernard Sainz, alias “Dr Mabuse”, has spent years embroiled in scandals
over encouraging doping and illegally practicing medicine.
The 75-year-old, who describes himself as an alternative medicine
therapist, had initially been sentenced to nine months in jail in September
2017 and was told to pay a 20,000 euro ($22,600) fine.
But an appeal verdict, announced on Wednesday, saw the change in sentence
and the fine reduced to 2,000 euros.
“I was expecting to be let off, plain and simple… I can’t be satisfied
considering these are non-existent deeds in a doping affair,” Sainz said
after the verdict.
“This obstinacy is getting to be very painful, especially when you’re 75,”
he added, speaking of the prosecution.
At the appeal in December, the prosecution had demanded a heavier sentence
against Sainz for engaging in doping between 2008 and 2010, with prosecutor
Marc Faury saying that “sport becomes much less so when he (Sainz) is
involved”.
Sainz — known as “Dr Mabuse” after the 1922 film depicting a fake doctor
— has had repeated brushes with the law.
He was previously jailed in connection with other doping incidents and for
illegally working as a doctor.
Sainz was initially convicted during the 1998 Festina affair at the Tour
de France during which police found a stash of performance-enhancing drugs in
a team car, throwing the sport into turmoil.
In 2013, he was fined 3,000 euros in a case linked to horse doping.
The following year, he was sentenced to two years in prison, of which 20
months were suspended, for incitement to dope and practising medicine without
a licence.
In 2016, Sainz was secretly filmed by French TV giving doping instructions
to cyclists. These included instructing his “patients” on the use of EPO, a
blood-doping agent, and clenbuterol, a steroid.
BSS/AFP/RY/1630 hrs