Stefan Denifl

Stefan Denifl
	Denifl in 2009
Personal information
Full name	Stefan Denifl
Born	22 September 1987 (age 37); Fulpmes, Tyrol, Austria
Height	1.79 m (5 ft 10+1⁄2 in)
Weight	65 kg (143 lb; 10.2 st)
Team information
Current team	Retired
Discipline	Road
Role	Rider
Rider type	Climber; Time trialist;
Amateur team
2009	Cervélo TestTeam (stagiaire)
Professional teams
2006	Vorarlberger
2007–2009	Elk Haus–Simplon
2010	Cervélo TestTeam
2011	Leopard Trek
2012	Vacansoleil–DCM
2013–2016	IAM Cycling
2017–2018	Aqua Blue Sport
Major wins
	One-day races and Classics National Time Trial Championships (2008)

Stefan Denifl (born 22 September 1987) is an Austrian former professional cyclist, who rode professionally between 2006 and 2018 for seven different professional teams. In 2019, Denifl confessed to doping during a five-year period in his career, and was given a four-year ban from the sport; as a consequence of this, Denifl received a two-year sentence in 2021 for serious commercial fraud.

Career

Born in Fulpmes, Denifl began racing in 2001 with "Team Bike Denifl" as a mountain biker. In 2003, he moved to the road, riding for "Team ÖAMTC Recheis Lattella". From 2004, he focused on road cycling. In 2005, he was signed by Heiko Salzwedel for the T-Mobile Development Programme and included his first experience with the professional cyclists. In 2006, he signed with his first UCI Continental team Vorarlberger, and from 2007 to 2009 he was part of Elk Haus–Simplon. In 2009, he rode as a trainee for Cervélo TestTeam,^[2] and rode with them as a full professional the next year. In 2012, he rode for a year with Vacansoleil–DCM^[3] before joining IAM Cycling the following year.^[4] In October 2016, Aqua Blue Sport announced that Denifl, alongside IAM team-mate Leigh Howard, would be part of their inaugural squad for the 2017 season.^[5] After Aqua Blue disbanded in the later summer of 2018, in October of that year Denifl was initially announced as a member of the CCC Team for the following season. However, in December 2018 the team announced that they and Denifl had mutually agreed to cancel his contract for personal reasons, which were not specified at the time.^[6]

Blood doping

In February 2019, Kronen Zeitung broke news that a number of professional cyclists had been implicated in the doping scandal uncovered at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships. Later, Denifl confessed to blood doping in a police interview^[7] with CCC Team general manager Jim Ochowicz confirming that team's medical assessment of Denifl's biological passport showed no warning signs of blood doping.^[8]^[9] Denifl was handed a four-year ban on 27 June 2019.^[10] On 12 January 2021, it was announced that Denifl would receive a two-year prison sentence for fraud.^[11] The following year, the original judgement was overturned and went to a retrial.^[12]