Valverde denies involvement in Puerto

Providing his CAS appeals go in his favour, Valverde will be targetting the Tour and also possibly the Vuelta.

Providing his CAS appeals go in his favour, Valverde will be targetting the Tour and also possibly the Vuelta. (Image credit: Shane Stokes)

Alejandro Valverde denied that he had any involvement with the Operación Puerto blood doping ring when he gave evidence to the Court of Arbitration for Sport yesterday (Wednesday). Talking to the court via telephone from Australia where he is preparing for the Tour Down Under, Valverde insisted he had no direct link with Eufemiano Fuentes, the doctor at the centre of the Puerto investigation. "He was the brother of my [Kelme team] doctor, and that's all," Valverde is reported by La Gazzetta Dello Sport to have told the CAS hearing taking place in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014). 

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