Eufemiano Fuentes

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Eufemiano Fuentes Rodríguez (* 1955 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ) is a Spanish sports doctor who gained international fame through a doping scandal in the run-up to the 2006 Tour de France .

Fuentes studied at the University of Navarra and initially specialized as a gynecologist . As a former athlete specializing in the 400-meter hurdles , he soon switched to sports medicine and was in charge of the Spanish Olympic team at the Games in Los Angeles as early as 1984 . His fiancée and future wife Cristina Pérez set the Spanish record over 400 meter hurdles in 1988. Soon after, she tested positive for anabolic steroids , but the doping test was declared invalid. Pérez then ended her career, and Fuentes retired from athletics, from now on primarily looking after cyclists .

Doping affairs

Eufemiano Fuentes (2000)

Main article: Fuentes doping scandal

Fuentes was team doctor for the Liberty Seguros-Würth cycling team , led by Manolo Saiz , until the team was disbanded in May 2007. At that time, an anti-drug unit of the Guardia Civil succeeded in uncovering a doping ring around Fuentes with the Operación Puerto after four months of observation.

The investigators had become aware of the Kelme team after the previously dismissed professional cyclist Jesús Manzano reported at the beginning of 2004 about the team's alleged doping practice during tours such as the Tour de France . According to the investigations of the Guardia Civil, the then team doctor Fuentes is said to have doped professional cyclists across Europe with his own blood, among other things . The list of the 38 names of cyclists published so far includes numerous well-known riders, including Jan Ullrich , Ivan Basso , Roberto Heras , Tyler Hamilton , Joseba Beloki and Alberto Contador .

The Guardia Civil found hundreds of blood plasma in one apartment in Madrid , as well as erythropoietin (EPO), growth hormones and anabolic steroids . Charges have been drawn up against Fuentes and his head of laboratory José Luis Merino Batres and three other people for endangering public health. Fuentes himself described his approach as using "biological methods to shorten recovery time".

On March 12, 2007, the investigation against Eufemiano Fuentes and all other suspects in the Spanish criminal proceedings was suspended, as their actions were not criminal before the anti-doping law came into force in Spain. However, the public prosecutor's office appealed. She was supported by Spain's highest sports authority (CSD), the world association UCI , the World Anti-Doping Agency ( WADA ) and the International Olympic Committee ( IOK ). A court upheld the objection and ordered the judge to continue the investigation. It justified this with the fact that an opinion on the administered blood doping was unclear. On the basis of a new expert opinion, the court decided in October 2008 for the second time to discontinue the investigation.

On May 7, 2007, Ivan Basso admitted to having worked with the sports medic. He agreed to help clarify the doping scandal. On May 8, 2007, however, he denied at a press conference that he had ever doped. He only intended such manipulations, but did not carry them out. At the end of June 2007, the German driver Jörg Jaksche confessed in an interview that he had undergone self-blood therapies that were prohibited from 2005 as a customer of Eufemiano Fuentes.

On December 9, 2010, Eufemiano Fuentes, his sister, the successful long-distance runner Marta Domínguez and eleven other people were arrested as part of the Operación Galgo on suspicion of having been trafficking in doping drugs.

In April 2013, he was sentenced to one year suspended prison sentence and four years' ban from the profession. The ban was lifted in 2016 and he was acquitted of all allegations because blood in itself is not a drug. His sister and all of the other defendants were also subsequently acquitted.

Web links

Footnotes

  1. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : Scandals in cycling: no consequences, no desire - no doping? . October 2, 2008
  2. ^ Spiegel Online : U-turn: Basso denies doping . May 8, 2007
  3. Lothar Gorris, Detlef Hacke & Udo Ludwig: Cycling: Bella's blood . In: Der Spiegel . No. 27 , 2007, p. 64 ff . ( online ).
  4. ^ Frankfurter Rundschau : New doping scandal in Spain: 14 arrests . December 9, 2010
  5. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung : New strike against doping: "Operacion Galgo" in Spain . December 9, 2010
  6. Probation and professional ban for doping doctor Fuentes. sportschau.de, April 30, 2013, archived from the original on June 3, 2013 ; Retrieved April 30, 2013 .
  7. Operacion Puerto blood bags to be handed over to anti-doping authorities , Alasdair Fotheringham, Cycling News, June 14, 2016 (in English)