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WADA seeks civil action in Puerto case
The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) announced Tuesday that it has made a request to take up civil action involving Spain's Operación Puerto scandal.
On March 12, the presiding judge in the criminal case threw out the case on the grounds that Spain had no law specifically barring the use of doping products or methods for sporting competition at the time alleged infractions occurred. State prosecutors appealed that decision two days later.
Last year's probe uncovered an alleged doping network said to involve 58 cyclists out of a total of 200 athletes. Revelations implicating top cyclists led to several yellow jersey favorites being suspended by their teams two days prior to the 2006 Tour de France.
Ivan Basso of Italy and Germany's 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich were among several riders pulled out of the race for allegedly being directly or indirectly involved in the affair.
Olivier Niggli, WADA's director of legal affairs, told AFP on Tuesday if WADA's civil action was given the go-ahead, the agency would work hand in hand with the sport's world governing body, the UCI, to get to the bottom of the case.
However doubts remain about whether WADA would get access to any information after the judge said it could not be used by sporting authorities to punish athletes because the criminal inquiry had not been completed.
