French doping 'doctor' Bernard Sainz jailed again for helping amateur cyclists cheat

Bernard Sainz, whose past clients include the Tour de France winners Bernard Hinault and the late Laurent Fignon as well as seven-time polka dot jersey winner, Richard Virenque, was handed the sentence by a court in Caen yesterday, reports the local.fr.

The 73-year-old has been involved in professional cycling since 1972, when he began working with the Mercier team and Raymond Poulidour, and was often wrongly reported in the press to be a qualified doctor rather than a homeopathic practitioner.

He subsequently earned the nickname ‘Dr Mabuse’ after the fictional fake doctor created by Norbert Jacques and who featured in three films by Fritz Lang.

His name has cropped up a number of times in anti-doping investigations over the years, including one dating from 1999 in which he was found guilty of inciting use of doping products.

That investigation also saw him convicted of illegally practising medicine, an offence for which he would be found guilty on several occasions including in a 2013 case relating mainly to the doping of racehorses.

A separate trial in 2014 resulted in Sainz being found guilty of offences including possessing testosterone and corticosteroids, for which he received a two-year jail term with 20 moths suspended.

Speaking of his latest conviction to the radio station France Bleu, Sainz claimed: "This court is a put-up job. It is as if they wanted to prevent alternative medicine therapists from having a sports clientele."

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