Michael Weiss (born 17 January 1981) is an Austrian

triathlete A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of swimming, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the time transitioning between the ...

and cyclist. He represented Austria in the

2004 Summer Olympics The 2004 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad (), and officially branded as Athens 2004 (), were an international multi-sport event held from 13 to 29 August 2004 in Athens, Greece. The Games saw 10,625 athletes ...

in men's mountain bike, cross-country and is the 2011

XTERRA Triathlon XTERRA is a series of cross triathlon races, i.e. three-sport races which include swimming, mountain biking, and trail running. The XTERRA Global Tour is owned and produced by XTERRA Sports Limited. The XTERRA race series is the best-known serie ...

world champion.

Career

Mountain biking

Weiss was a member of the Austrian national mountain bike team from 1999–2008. In 2003, he won the under–23 European Mountain Bike Championships. The next year, in 2004, he became the Austrian mountain bike champion and competed in the 2004 Summer Olympic's mountain bike race where he placed 32nd with a time 2:30:14. After failing to qualify for 2008 Olympics in Beijing, Weiss eventually turned to triathlon.

Triathlon

Weiss took his skill in mountain biking and applied them to the XTERRA Triathlon series. He has had success at the championships in

Maui Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...

placing second in 2008, third in 2009 and 2010 before winning the championship in 2011. In May 2010, Weiss became the first Austrian to win an Ironman competition by winning the 2010 Ironman St.George race. In 2013, in his first race after serving his two-year doping ban, Weiss won Ironman Cozumel.

Doping ban

In November 2011, Weiss was given a two–year ban for a

blood doping Blood doping is a form of Doping in sport, doping in which the number of red blood cells in the bloodstream is boosted in order to enhance athletic performance. Because such blood cells carry oxygen from the lungs to the muscles, a higher concentr ...

infringement in 2005 while competing in mountain biking. An independent commission of Austria's anti-doping agency (''Nationale Anti-Doping Agentur Austria'', NADA), said that it had found Weiss to be guilty of having his blood taken for enrichment at a blood lab in Vienna in 2005. NADA initially cleared Weiss in September 2010, but that decision was reversed a year later and subsequently issued the ban from competition. Weiss declared his innocence but chose not to appeal the ban, citing the time and expense that would be required to do so.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Weiss, Michael 1981 births Austrian male cyclists Austrian male triathletes Cyclists at the 2004 Summer Olympics Doping cases in cycling Doping cases in triathlon Austrian sportspeople in doping cases Living people Austrian mountain bikers Olympic cyclists for Austria