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| Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes during Tuesday's hearing in Madrid. |
So far
Fuentes has only named a handful of clients by name, but according to the
Spanish doctor he would be able to identify every single code name on the list,
if he had too. Unfortunately that doesn’t seem likely.
It’s
important to remember that this hearing is not about if Fuentes doped athletes
or not - he already admitted to blood transfusions – because that wasn’t
illegal in Spain until November 2006. Eufemiano Fuentes is “only” facing
charges of an “offense against public health” and therefore he doesn’t need to
mention any specific names.
Whistleblower
and former Kelme rider, Jesus Maria Manzano, is set to witness in February but
has already said that he saw several football players during his visits to
Fuentes’ clinic in Madrid. French newspaper, Le Monde, made in 2006 a
connection between Barcelona and Dr. Fuentes claiming they were in position of
doping calendars for several Barcelona players like the ones seen for the
Liberty Seguros riders. Barcelona sued Le Monde and journalist Stéphane Mandard
and won. In the end Le Monde was set to pay Barcelona a fine of €15.000 for “damaging
the club’s honor”.
In recent
years Eufemiano Fuentes has been linked to the football world numerous times
and when arrested during Operacion Galgo a cellmate of Fuentes told a Spanish a
newspaper that Fuentes had said: “If I start talking, we won’t have the
European Championship nor the World Cup”. Fuentes later made a written
statement denying ever to have said those words.
I doubt
Eufemiano Fuentes will start dropping names but at least he made it clear that
it’s not only cyclists he has been taking care of. Tennis star Nova Djokovic
recently said that he was sure tennis players were the most clean athletes.
Djokovic also admitted he hadn’t been blood tested in more than half a year. Same story in football as UEFA claim that
Barcelona only had 3 surprise anti-doping controls in the 2010/11 season. To
compare it Fabian Cancellara wrote on Twitter back December 2010 that he had had
55 anti-doping tests last year.
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