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| If the Spanish give up, can Francesca Rossi get on the case? |
There’s news that the Spanish judicial authorities could wrap up Operation Puerto. For me the case has a mess from the beginning, with justice dished out according to nationality rather than behaviour. But regardless, it’s finally coming to an end. Here’s cyclingnews.com, quoting the German DPA newsagency.
“When the final ruling is issued, after a possible appeal, then it is likely that in the end all the blood bags and evidence will be destroyed,” Beltran said on the German TV show “Sport Inside” scheduled to be broadcast Monday evening, according to the dpa news agency.
Instead of destroying the samples, where’s the UCI and the Spanish federation? Both of these should be hungry to root out the cheats. Because if no law has been broken, the use of blood for doping is a significant doping offence. In other words, if there’s no legal case, there’s probably a doping one. Now that the case is no longer under legal privilege in Spain, perhaps the case notes and blood samples can be shared with others in order to help clean up?
The UCI’s anti-doping crusader is Francesca Rossi and hopefully this is surely an avenue worth pursuing? It’s fashionable to kick the UCI but remember they have gone after Alejandro Valverde, although only after the Italians prepared the ground. Hopefully there are lessons still to be learned from this case.