CONI gains access to Fuentes samples

Breakthrough in the long-standing impasse surrounding the 2006 blood bags seized in 211 from Eufemiano Fuentes, who was accused of being a “doping doctor”: Following a ruling by a Madrid court, Italy's Olympic Committee CONI will receive testable samples from all bags in order to be able to carry out further investigations.

The bags should finally be able to be assigned to the corresponding athletes. This is reported by the Spanish sports daily AS.

List of names The World Anti-Doping Agency WADA had already partially assigned the blood samples to the corresponding top athletes in its own investigations in Lausanne. Former WADA Director General David Howman reported on this in February 2017.

However, for legal reasons, the names have not yet been published. WADA is said to have a list of 26 men and three women. Top athletes “taken care of” Fuentes has supplied a number of top athletes, including former tour winner Jan Ullrich, with performance-enhancing substances. He was arrested as part of the “Operacion Puerto” and sentenced in 2013 to one year in prison and a four-year ban from practicing sports medicine for “endangering public health”.

Fuentes had suggested that the affair extended far beyond cycling. He spoke of having also treated footballers, tennis players, track and field athletes and boxers. Legal dispute over blood bags A legal dispute arose over the blood bags. After the bags were initially ordered to be destroyed by the court, top representatives of Spanish sport, including WADA and the UCI, the world cycling association, lodged an objection.

With success, the order was rejected by the court in the Spanish capital in June 2016. Spanish judge Patricia Santamaria ordered the destruction to protect the personal rights of the more than 200 athletes affected.

The CONI pushed for Italy in 2009 and banned the Spaniard Alejandro Valverde from all races on Italian soil for two years. One of the blood bags labeled Valv.Piti could be attributed to the current world champion. In 2010, the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) followed CONI and banned it worldwide.

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CONI gains access to Fuentes samples

According to a report in Spanish media, the Italian Olympic Committee made a breakthrough in the “Causa Fuentes”: