The Explainer: Will the Puerto case ever end?
Dear Explainer,
I am as much of an anti-doping advocate as the next guy, but isn’t it kind of ridiculous that we’ve been suffering through the on-again-off-again cycles of Operación Puerto for more than three years now? Doesn’t cycling have a freakin’ statute of limitations?
We’ve seen Jan Ullrich driven out of the sport, Ivan Basso suspended and other riders implicated but never charged. Now we have Alejandro Valverde being charged by the Italians over something that supposedly happened in Spain.
What next? What else can we expect from the files of Eufemiano Fuentes and why is it that cyclists are the only people we’re talking about? Weren’t there athletes from other sports involved?
Jon Garland
Oregon, Wisconsin
Dear Jon,
Well, we’re not quite at three years, but we’re close. The police raids on the residences and labs of Fuentes took place on May 23, 2006. The good doctor — a gynecologist by specialty — was arrested that day, as was Manolo Saiz, then the director of the Liberty Seguros team. If there’s one tangible benefit from Puerto, at least we don’t have Saiz following his riders in a car as they time trial screaming ”Venga! Venga! Venga!” over a bullhorn anymore. But I digress.
To your first question, is there a statute of limitations in cycling? Ah, yes, the famous get-out-of-jail-free card that applies to anyone whose alleged crime occurred beyond a specified time frame. Statutes of limitations apply in many criminal and civil cases in most countries and the same is true for alleged dopers in cycling.
In cycling, the statute of limitations for doping violations is governed not by the UCI rulebook, but by provisions of the World Anti-Doping Code. Specifically, Article 17 of the WADA Code notes that “no action may be commenced against an Athlete or other Person for a violation of an anti-doping rule contained in the Code unless such action is commenced within eight years from the date the violation occurred.”
Now, some of those alleged violations occurred in the years well before the May raids. Others did not. Basso, for example, said he was storing blood in anticipation of the 2006 Tour, using a sanguine variant of the I-did-not-inhale defense. In the case of Valverde, there is evidence to suggest that if he did have a relationship with Fuentes, it ended in 2004, when he left the old Kelme team.
Australian attorney Martin Hardie recently noted that one note in Folio 106 of the Puerto summaries suggests that Fuentes had stored bag No. 18 in anticipation (hopes?) that his former patient might return for future services. (Gee, thanks, doc.) There is no evidence to suggest, however, that the relationship resumed after Valverde left what has since been shown to be a team with an organized doping program. But, rules are rules and the rules in the WADA code leave that door open for eight years, so if the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI), the Spanish Cycling Federation, the UCI, WADA and the Court of Arbitration for Sport can sort through the muddle of jurisdictional issues in the case, Valverde might be facing a two-year suspension.
One exception to the statute of limitations outlined in the WADA Code, by the way, is doping’s version of the death penalty, the lifetime ban. WADA rules call for a permanent ban from competition whenever an athlete is convicted of a second doping offense. The fact that a second offense may have occurred more than eight years after the first makes no difference in the application of that rule. Indeed, the authors of the Code made a point of clarifying that question in the commentary that accompanies the rule.
As for what we can expect from the now-infamous Fuentes files, well, that question is still up in the air. The list named 56 riders when Spanish authorities released the summary on the eve of the 2006 Tour de France. The impact, as you recall, was swift, with Ullrich, Basso, Oscar Sevilla, Francisco Mancebo and others all getting cut from their respective team rosters. The Liberty Seguros team, by then operating under the sponsorship of Astana-Würth, lost five riders, meaning that the team couldn’t meet the minimum entry requirements for the race, so the entire squad — including riders not named in the summary, like Alexander Vinokourov, who has since encountered his own problems — was excluded from that year’s Tour.
Several riders were placed under criminal investigation in Spain, but have since been cleared by the courts, since there was no law under which they could be charged. Those include Joseba Beloki, Alberto Contador, Isidro Nozal, Allan Davis and Sergio Paulinho. The Spanish parliament has since passed a sporting fraud statute, specifically in response to the Puerto case. While that court ruling is likely to mean that they will not face later criminal charges, the UCI and WADA are not constrained by the limits of Spanish criminal law and are reserving judgment until more of the Fuentes files are released to their investigators. Spanish investigators, however, have been reluctant to turn over those documents.
How, then, did CONI get enough information to pursue a charge against Valverde? The difference may be in the fact that while the UCI and WADA are non-governmental agencies, CONI is actually a branch of the Italian government and inter-governmental cooperation in the investigation gave the Italians access to some of the relevant information. That allowed CONI to take the DNA from a blood sample taken when the Tour de France stopped in Italy in 2008 and compare it to that from blood seized in the raid on the Fuentes offices. BINGO! ... or at least that's what investigators are telling reporters following the case. It may be a while before CONI rules on Valverde and then effectively drops the ball into the UCI's court.
So who’s still out there? Well, among the riders who are still in a state of Puerto-induced limbo, several have retired or are still under suspension for other violations. Roberto Heras is done with the suspension resulting from his EPO positive at the Vuelta. Angel Casero, Michele Bartoli and Ullrich have left the sport. Marco Pantani, alleged to have been a client of Fuentes’ in 2003, died of a cocaine overdose in 2004.
Former Liberty Seguros rider Jörg Jaksche initially fought off allegations that he had used the Madrid doctor’s services, but soon after being suspended by Tinkoff Credit Systems in 2007, gave a tell-all interview to Der Spiegel and admitted that he was the patient to whom Fuentes had referred to as “Bella” in his notes.
Others, like Santiago Botero, Sevilla, Carlos Quesada and Tyler Hamilton, are still riding and, if they weren’t involved, appear to have no reason to worry.
What about athletes in other sports, though? While cyclists have most certainly been the primary focus of Puerto coverage in our publication, other sports have been implicated, among them cross-country skiing and football. Of the latter, Spain’s two biggest teams — Real Madrid and FC Barcelona — are, according to news reports, extensively named in the Fuentes files.
When it comes down to it, Jon, the question of Puerto’s real impact on cycling and other sports may take years to sort out. As we noted above, it could drag on all the way up until 2014. It’s the scandal that keeps on giving. Let’s just hope it all gets settled, one way or the other, long before that .
Email Charles Pelkey
Last 5 DaysMOST VIEWED »
- Team RadioShack releases its 2010 roster: 26 riders from 16 countries/
- UCI registers 17 ProTour teams
- Someone swiped a Trek-Livestrong team bike from the Mellow Johnny's store over the weekend.
- Tech Updates: Northwave, Campagnolo and more
- Astana hits another ProTour bump
- Technical Q&A with Lennard Zinn - Of drivetrains, tires and pressure
- The Mailbag - Swimming, pure sport, money and more
- Pereiro Astana-bound?
