By Susan Westemeyer
The Austrian cycling federation (ÖRV) announced last week that it has shelved proceedings against Jörg Jaksche, who was named in the Operación Puerto Spanish doping scandal. On Monday, ÖRV General Secretary Rudolf Massak gave Cyclingnews a more detailed explanation:
"With regards to the possible opening of anti-doping proceedings against Jörg Jaksche, the Austrian Cycling Federation {ÖRV} feels itself obligated after a thorough test of the underlying rules and legal regulations, to wait upon further findings from the court in Madrid in the process against Fuentes et al. (Operación Puerto) -- a decision, which was made together with the UCI.
"At the present time we assume that further relevant information most probably will be available only after the end of the legal proceedings in Spain. For the time being, the ÖRV anti-doping committee will therefore not be instructed to conduct hearings in the Jaksche case."
Jaksche told Cyclingnews, "Some weeks, ago, my attorney Michael Lehner had received positive signals by the federation saying that, after studying the documents, they would not open proceedings against me. But this decision had nothing to do with the fact that the Spanish judge in charge of the affair had ordered that the documents could not be used by the federations - they took that decision independently."
Watch out for an extensive interview with Jörg Jaksche on Cyclingnews in the coming days.
