Michael Weiss

Michael Weiss (born 17 January 1981) is an Austrian triathlete and cyclist. He represented Austria in the 2004 Summer Olympics in men's mountain bike, cross-country and is the 2011 XTERRA Triathlon 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.

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 placing second in 2008, third in 2009 and 2010 before winning the championship in 2011. 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 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.