Klöden to pay fine in Freiburg clinic doping case

German Andreas Klöden has agreed to pay a fine to call an end to an investigation into his involvement in a 2006 blood doping scandal, the dpa reported Saturday.

A spokesman for the public prosecutor in Bonn said that, in return for the payment, the district court will stop proceedings for sporting fraud against the 34-year-old. The payment, said to be 25,000 euros by the German magazine Focus, is not considered an admission of guilt  under German law.

Klöden has always denied he took part in an alleged blood doping operation with the now defunct T-Mobile team at the Freiburg University Clinic.

The scandal was uncovered after Klöden's former teammate Patrik Sinkewitz tested positive for testosterone prior to the 2007 Tour de France.

During questioning by the German cycling federation, Sinkewitz was reported to have pointed the finger at Klöden and other T-Mobile teammates as having traveled to the Freiburg clinic during the 2006 Tour de France to receive blood transfusions.

The transfusions were said to have taken place even after Jan Ullrich, Oscar Sevilla and director Rudy Pevenage were suspended from the team for involvement in the Spanish doping affair, Operación Puerto.

Sinkewitz denied that he gave prosecutors any names.

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