- HOT TOPICS:
- An American start for the Giro? •
- 2010 Routes: Giro | California | TdF •
- LA doc guilty on all counts
Saturday's EuroFile: Puerto running out of steam? Perez ready to Relax?
The Operación Puerto doping investigation looks to be running into rocky legal waters and could end without anyone facing charges at all.
According to legal sources quoted in the Spanish daily El Mundo, judges overseeing the case are considering dropping charges if more evidence isn’t forthcoming.
Spanish authorities rocked cycling in May when they uncovered an alleged blood doping ring involving some of the sport’s biggest names, including Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso, 1997 Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich and more than 50 others. The raids found large quantities of steroids, EPO, nearly 200 bags of blood and plasma, other doping products as well as lab equipment used for transfusions.
Alleged ring-leader Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes might walk away if the court decides he didn’t break any laws. With a new Spanish anti-doping law still waiting action (see below), Fuentes and alleged associate Dr. José Luis Merino, a Madrid hematologist, are only facing relatively light charges of “endangering public health.”
A legal source said those charges might be dropped if it’s determined that nearly 200 bags of plasma and blood were stored within rules outlined by Spanish law.
The sources also indicated that the Puerto investigation is unraveling due to a lack of enough hard evidence. Officials from Spain’s Guardia Civil obtained court orders to tap phones, but couldn’t gather more than circumstantial evidence that legal sources say won’t stand up in court.
A Spanish court has already said evidence gathered in the high-profile raids of apartments and labs in Madrid and Zaragoza last month cannot be used to impose sanctions on riders until the investigation if formally closed.
That ruling has prompted Italian and Spanish cycling federations to shelve disciplinary proceedings against Basso and more than two dozen Spanish riders.
A lawsuit from ex-Liberty Seguros manager Manolo Sáiz and the threat of legal action from implicated riders also has chilled the court’s enthusiasm in prosecuting the case, sources told El Mundo.
Sáiz – who was among five people detained in the May raids – insists that confidential information leaked by Spanish authorities caused damages to his reputation. Sáiz recently won a battle to keep his UCI ProTour license for the coming season.
New Spanish doping law closer to reality
A tough new anti-doping law that would impose criminal charges against doping in sport took a step closer to reality this week in Spain when the parliament voted to approve the legislation.
The law would criminalize doping practices, with proven dopers and their associates facing criminal charges and possible jail time from six months to two years as well as disciplinary action from their respective governing bodies. The law also calls for increased out-of-competition tests as well as the creation of a new anti-doping agency to oversee implementation.
The law would bring Spain inline with legislation already on the books in Italy, France and Belgium. Germany is also considering a tougher anti-doping law following a string of doping scandals this summer.
Spanish authorities hope to have the law formally approved within the next six months. It’s unlikely, however, that the law will be retroactive, meaning riders and others implicated in the Operación Puerto doping investigation will not face criminal charges.
Pérez lands at Relax-GAM
Santiago Pérez, the Spanish rider who served a two-year blood doping ban similar to Tyler Hamilton, has penned a deal to join Spanish continental team Relax-GAM for the 2007 season.
Pérez tested positive for homologous blood doping after finishing second overall in the 2004 Vuelta a España. Unlike Hamilton, who fought in vain to overturn his two-year ban with a lengthy legal and public relations battle, Pérez didn’t contest his the charges despite denying the allegations.
Pérez was Hamilton’s teammate at Phonak during the 2004 season and both were caught injecting someone else’s blood into their systems by new UCI-sanctioned tests. Pérez failed out-of-competition tests taken after the 2004 Vuelta and his two-year ban ended last month.
The Spanish team has also signed Julián Sánchez and extended contracts with several of its top riders, including Nacor Burgos and Jesús Hernández.
Clerc: ‘Cycling in danger’
Tour de France boss Patrice Clerc says the recent spate of doping scandals has thrown the future of the sport in danger. Clerc, president of Amaury Sport Organization that owns the Tour de France, said the French daily Le Figaro wondered why the UCI continues to attack the Tour.
“Cycling is in danger,” Clerc said following recent doping scandals involving Tour winner Floyd Landis and the Operación Puerto investigation in Spain. “What kind of twisted mind can expect to lead cycling out of its crisis by attacking the locomotive of the train?”
The UCI and Tour officials have been squaring off since the inception of the ProTour series in 2006. The ongoing feud shows no signs of cooling following the recent snub by Tour officials not to invite UCI president Pat McQuaid to the 2007 Tour unveiling last week in Paris. Clerc accused the UCI of trying to wrest control of the lucrative TV contracts from the race organizers with the imposition of the ProTour system.
“That’s not their role. Their role is to be regulators, not economic. Everyone has their appropriate place,” Clerc said, adding that the effort to impose the ProTour system has been a “failed coup d’etat. They wanted to force this system upon us and the organizers of the grand tours have squarely opposed them.”
Finot switches, Halgand broken down
French rider Frédéric Finot has penned a one-year deal to join VC Roubaix Lille Métropole for the 2007 season. Finot, 29, turned pro in 1999 and has raced with FDJeux since 2005. Cyrille Guimard is acting as consultant with the northern French team which hopes to be join the ProTour ranks in the coming years.
French veteran Patrice Halgand (Credit Agricole) broke his right clavicle this week while competing in a cyclo-cross race. The 32-year-old, who also broke his clavicle during the Tour Down Under last January, is expected to undergo surgery to repair the injury.
