Kristijan Koren and Borut Bozic, both members of the Bahrain Merida team, have been banned for two years in connection with a doping ring uncovered by "Operation Adelas."

Koren is an active professional rider for Bahrain-Merida, and Bozich is working as sport director after racing for the team in 2017 and 2018, his last years as a rider.

The UCI, which notified the two Slovenians of possible anti-doping rule violations (ADRV) in May, announced Wednesday that it had sanctioned them with a two-year suspension period.

Both violations were for "use of prohibited methods/substances" and relate to violations in 2011 and 2012 for Collen and 2012 for Bozich.

According to UCI, both ADRVs were "based on information received from Austrian law enforcement authorities."

This refers to "Operation Adelrath" ("bloodletting" in English), which raided a clinic in Erfurt, Germany, and uncovered a doping ring led by former Gerolsteiner doctor Mark Schmidt, who was arrested in February. This investigation came to light with the arrest of many ski racers, but it did not take long for the involvement of professional cyclists to be uncovered.

The first to confess to blood doping in the scheme was Stefan Denifl, who was under contract to the CCC team, while Georg Preidler of Groupama-FDJ quickly admitted to bloodletting. Both were banned for four years in June.

Just before the start of the 2019 Giro d'Italia, Danilo Hondo of Lampre and RadioShack admitted to blood doping, and more names were uncovered during the Giro. On the morning of stage 5, Koren and Božič were named by the UCI, along with Kristijan Durasek (UAE Team Emirates) and former Italian pro Alessandro Petacchi.

Collen was a member of the Liquigas/Cannondale team from 2010 to 2014 until 2017, when the team merged with Slipstream Sports and became the current EF Education First. 2018 he joined Bahrain-Merida, Tour de France and competed in this year's Giro d'Italia. Meanwhile, Bozich ran for Vanansoleil, Astana, and Cofidis before joining Bahrain-Merida in 2017; he retired two years later and became sporting director.

The ban was a further blow for Bahrain Merida after Kanthantin Sioutoux tested positive for EPO in 2018. The team's managing director, Milan Elsen, was recently revealed to be under investigation by the UCI for doping, and newspaper reports in Italy and France reported his relationship with Dr. Schmidt.

When the UCI first announced the ADRV, Bahrain-Merida provisionally suspended Koren and Bozich, stating that it had a "zero tolerance doping policy" and that it "always conducts thorough medical checks (including biological passport checks) on new contract riders The team stated that it "always conducts thorough medical checks (including biological passport checks) on newly contracted riders". The team noted that this relates to the 2012 and/or 2013 seasons when Collen was with Liquigas Cannondale and Cannondale and Bozich was with Astana.

Last December, McLaren was set to enter the sport as the main backer of the Bahrain team starting in 2020, and investors conducted due diligence and worked closely with the UCI before making a major financial commitment to the sport, as revealed to Cyclingnews.

"We spent a lot of time this year on due diligence and the nature of the opportunity.

"We are never 100 percent sure, but we asked for and received assurances from the UCI as to what the sport is doing. The way both the Bahrain-Merida team and the UCI reacted to what happened throughout the season made their commitment clear. It was an encouraging part of the due diligence process for us."