Suspicion still surrounds Spanish sport

Operation Puerto judge sparks outrage by ordering destruction of blood bags

The Spanish anti-doping agency will launch a legal appeal after the judge in the Operation Puerto trial sparked outrage by ordering the destruction of more than 200 blood bags that could hold the secret to one of the biggest doping conspiracies in sporting history.

Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria rejected a request by the World Anti-Doping Agency and the country’s national anti-doping organisation to hand over some 211 bags of blood and plasma and other documentary evidence seized by police seven years ago from the clinic of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes.


Yesterday, she found Fuentes guilty of endangering public health by ­giving blood transfusions to elite cyclists and sentenced him to a one-year suspended jail term, but she frustrated anti-doping officials by ruling that all evidence relating to the case, right down to the computers used during the Operation Puerto investigation, would be destroyed.


Investigators are anxious to examine the blood bags using the latest scientific methods to identify athletes from a range of sports who used Fuentes’s services as a blood-doping expert but who have yet to be unmasked.

Source: Daily Telegraph

 

 

 

 

Vocabulary:

 

to spark -

 

outrage -

 

an appeal -

 

a trial -

 

to reject -

 

a request -

 

to hand over -

 

to seize -

 

a suspended jail term -

 

to sentence sb -

a range of stg -

an offence -

to raid -

so far -

to pursue -

storage (n) -

a ruling -

ongoing (adj) -

underlying (adj) -

to cheat -

a stockpile -

dismay (n) -

to show up -

a doorstep -

damning (adj) -

beyond (prep) -

a court -

a cover up -

to strike off -

to acquit -

to harm -

a shortlist -

to hint -

willingness (n) -




 

What do you think of the scandal?

Do you think that punishment was too lenient?

Do you think that the blood bags should be destroyed?

Are Madrid's chances of histing the 2020 Olympics harmed by all this?