At the Innsbruck trial of suspended professional cyclist Georg Preidler, who is accused of sports fraud, the 29-year-old denied doping before 2018, Kleine Zeitung (opens in new tab) reported.

Prosecutor Thomas Willam announced in September that he would charge Pridler with fraud, saying that "starting with the Giro d'Italia in the spring of 2017, he regularly practiced blood doping and also took growth hormone until his doping confession."

Sunweb, Pridler's 2017 team, has threatened to sue him if doping during his time with the team is proven, and throughout the proceedings Pridler has denied any wrongdoing prior to 2018.

Shortly after the raid of the Adelrath operation, Pridler and Stefan Denifle confessed to blood doping. Pridler, who was subsequently fired by Groupama-FDJ, admitted that his blood was taken twice in late 2018, but claimed that he did not re-inject it. The "intent to cheat" was enough by itself to trigger an anti-doping rule violation.

He was suspended by the UCI and further charged with cheating because Innsbruck hosted the 2018 World Championships and Pridler was part of the Austrian team for the road race and time trial.

Preidler's trial was postponed indefinitely because the prosecutor requested the appearance of additional witnesses who had recently been arrested.

Throughout the case, Preidler denied using doping agents prior to 2018 and only took blood "out of pure curiosity."

The doctors involved in the blood doping scheme, Pridler says, "wanted to show me how it works in sports."

"My decision to do blood doping was foolish and fundamentally wrong. I regret it bitterly," Pridler said.

The allegations could fall on the next witness who testified that this 'suspicious person' supplied him with a syringe of an unknown substance, according to another former cyclist.

"I never felt the effects one way or the other, so I immediately lost interest," this former cyclist testified.