VIENNA: Austrian Nordic skiing and biathlon coach Walter Mayer had his prison sentence on doping charges reduced to 15 months suspended on appeal on Thursday.
Mayer was convicted of procuring banned substances for athletes and given a three month sentence with a further 12 months suspended by a Vienna court last August.
But an appeal court in the Austrian capital took a more lenient view and ruled that Mayer would not go to jail immediately.
The prosecution never established the identities of the athletes Mayer supplied with drugs between 2005 and 2009.
Mayer, who has always proclaimed his innocence, expressed disappointment at the appeal verdict and said he would take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
He has regularly accused the International Olympic Committee and its Belgian president Jacques Rogge of conducting a witch hunt against him.
Rogge publicly accused Mayer, who was suspended for a previous doping case from the 2002 Winter Olympics, of masterminding a new doping scandal involving the Austrian Nordic skiing and biathlon team at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.
In July 2012, an Italian court cleared Mayer of any involvement in the Turin case, along with five other members of the Austrian skiing federation, including president Peter Schrocksnadel.
Mayer gets 15 months suspended sentence
