Stefan Matschiner

Stefan Matschiner is a former Austrian track athlete and sports agent, and a convicted enabler of blood doping. After a brief career as a middle-distance runner (competing in the 800 and 1500 metres for the University of Memphis, and in the 1500 metres event at the 2002 European Athletics Indoor Championships), he became a manager for a number of world-class athletes and helped some of them with blood transfusions and, allegedly, supplied them with EPO. He was arrested in 2009 and convicted in 2010. Since then he has published a tell-all book and given interviews about his career as a doping-enabler.

Matschiner was born 14 May 1975 in Laakirchen, Austria, and attended the Höhere Technische Lehranstalt in Vöcklabruck. He was a middle-distance runner at the University of Memphis. He claimed, in a 2011 interview, to have started using performance-enhancing drugs at the age of 25, when he was a 1500 metres runner. He ran in the second heat of the 1500 metres race at the 2002 European Athletics Indoor Championships but did not qualify for the semi-final.

After he retired as an athlete he worked as a manager and sports agent, founding the "International Sports Agency" in 2003. His first clients were Kenyan runners, with whom he says he discussed doping openly. His name came up in a doping scandal during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin when he was staying at the Turin house of Walter Mayer, a former skier and coach banned from all Olympic events; Matschiner at the time was working with Manfred Kiesl, in whose home doping substances were found in 1997.

His agency began managing high-profile clients such as Michael Rasmussen and Bernhard Kohl, and Matschiner helped his athletes by administering blood transfusions in the Austrian village of Steyrermühl between the spring of 2007 and May 2008. Kohl had finished third in the 2008 Tour de France and won the polka dot jersey for best climber, but was later found to have used the performance-enhancing drug EPO (specifically, the class known as CERA) and stripped of his position and jersey. Kohl stated in early 2009 that he had met Matschiner in 2005 and started doping after their first meeting. Matschiner was arrested shortly thereafter, and during the investigation by the special doping task force of the Vienna Bundeskriminalamt (BKA), many other names were turned up and accusations made. At the time of his arrest, his website listed a number of Kenyan athletes as clients; Athletics Kenya chairman Isaiah Kiplagat claimed that Matschiner "is a total stranger to us". Swiss cyclist Markus Zberg was, according to the BKA, given Dynepo by Matschiner on orders of Kohl; Matschiner named Zberg again in his guilty plea in 2010. During the trial, Kohl admitted having discussed doping with Zberg in March or April 2008 and to have given him Matschiner's number. Zberg did not comment in 2009, when the allegations were first made, nor in 2010, when they were repeated, though he hired an attorney. Also named in the investigation and in Matschiner's plea was Austrian triathlete Lisa Hütthaler. Hütthaler's name had been mentioned in early 2009 and she confessed to the Austrian media in March of that year, though Matschiner at that time denied; she stated she had paid Matschiner more than $20,000 for doses of EPO. Matschiner stated he had provided five other athletes with "EPO, testosterone, and growth hormones", but did not name them.

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