Operacion Puerto athletes may never be named

A Spanish court issued a clarification to its ruling of 12 months ago regarding the release of the Operación Puerto blood bags to anti-doping authorities.

The Provincial Court of Madrid – which upheld an appeal against the original order to destroy some 211 blood bags – said it was only passing them over to the authorities to verify whether they belong to athletes with open cases, rather than to open new disciplinary proceedings. It means the owners of the bags – which have been the subject to an 11-year tug of war – may never be made public.

The letter of clarification comes after Eufemiano Fuentes – the doctor at the centre of the scandal which first erupted in 2006 when Guardia Civil raided his offices and seized the bags and other paraphernalia – asked for the bags to be returned to him, saying the publication of their owners violated “the right of privacy and confidentiality derived from the doctor-patient relationship”.

Fuentes, who is known to have worked with athletes, footballers, tennis players and boxers, previously threatened to name athletes involved.

The court denied Fuentes’s request but since there are no open cases it seems unlikely the names of any of the athletes corresponding to the bags will be made public.

The World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee urged the body to continue pursuing the case at a committee meeting earlier this month, but this clarification looks as if it may end that. Spanish newspaper AS has reported that there is no appeal process against this decision.