The World Anti-Doping Agency has raised its voice against the decision given by the Spanish judges to destroy the 200 bags of blood involved in the case of Operation Puerto. Wada has filed an appeal against the decision for the case whose trial was held at a court in Madrid in Spain. Sources confirmed that Wada has decided to fill a declaration for appealing at a Criminal Court at Madrid. Any official from the agency was not available for comment further as per the Wada policy of protecting the integrity of any process initiated by them. The International Cycling Union, Spanish prosecutor and the Italian Olympic Committee have also decided to support Wada’s appeal against the Madrid court.
Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria was condemned by all the various authorities for International sports and Anti-doping for denying them to analyze and test the blood bags to see their implications on any athlete. The blood bags were recovered from the office of Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes in 2006. Overall 211 blood bags with plasma and frozen blood were confiscated from the doctor’s office. He was the person who provided blood doping facilities to the cyclists. Fuentes was suspended for one year for running the huge doping ring.
Police further revealed that the doctor had a work association with soccer players, boxers, athletes and tennis players although it is not clear whether he helped them in doping as well or not. The chief of US Anti-Doping Agency, Travis Tygart also expressed his displeasure on the decision as well. He termed the decision by the Spanish court as “obvious setback”. He is very upset with UCI for not taking any kind of strict decision against all the pending doping cases. He said that after the Lance Amstrong scandal and US Postal doping case, it has been seven months and UCI is still sitting idle. He is happy that the cycling fraternity has raised a voice against the decision of destroying blood bags.
