The World Anti-Doping Agency has "taken custody of the 200-plus blood bags at the heart of the long-running Operation Puerto doping scandal, raising the possibility that the identity of those involved will be disclosed for the first time," according to Owen Gibson of the London GUARDIAN. The blood bags were seized in '06 when the Madrid-based Eufemiano Fuentes "was arrested and they remained in storage until he was put on trial seven years later for crimes against public health." He was "initially given a one-year suspended sentence but the judge ordered that the blood bags should be destroyed." However WADA and "others appealed and in mid-June a Spanish appeals court cleared Fuentes but ruled that the blood bags should not be destroyed after all." A WADA spokesperson said, "We can confirm that following a judge’s order last week WADA and the UCI [Int'l Cycling Union] proceeded to transport samples [of the blood and plasma bags] for storage in a WADA-accredited laboratory outside of Spain. Alongside the UCI we will now continue our investigation and will be considering all options open to us" (GUARDIAN, 7/6).
DRUGS FIGHT: REUTERS' Neil Robinson reported IAAF President Sebastian Coe said that he "believed public confidence in athletics was improving following the exclusion of Russia for widespread drug misuse but he urged caution to those hoping for a quick fix in the fight against doping." Coe said, "Rio is a really important moment for us, because it will showcase the sport and again I want the spotlight to fall on clean athletes who every hour of their waking day are trying to figure out how, within the rules, they can be better." He said that it "could take years for the sport to improve the situation." Coe: "It’s not like a slot machine where I can make five changes and pull a lever and something you trust is suddenly going to start spewing out into the till underneath" (REUTERS, 7/7).
