Spain’s anti-doping authorities are reported to be unable to take immediate action against athletes suspected of involvement in the Operation Ilex anti-doping investigation because official inquiries into potential criminal activities have yet to be completed.
Last week Spain’s Guardia Civil police released their first update on the lengthy inquiry into the doping ring, which has so far seen eight individuals placed under investigation and two arrested, as well as numerous banned substances seized in two raids, one of which was on the Sports Science Faculty of the University of Extremadura.
Amongst those investigated in the case, codenamed Ilex and which is currently being supervised by a judge in Caceres in western Spain, is Vicente Belda, former pro and ex-director of the long-defunct Kelme squad. Back in 2006, Belda was investigated in Operación Puerto, Spain’s largest-ever inquiry into banned drugs in sport before being cleared years later.
The case is widely believed to be linked to a long-running investigation into Doctor Marcos Maynar, who lives in the Caceres area and who was previously banned in 2009 by the Portuguese Cycling Federation for 10 years on a charge of supplying banned drugs to the former LA-MSS team. According to Spanish media, Doctor Maynar has repeatedly rejected any links to doping.
Clients of the ring were reported by the Guardia Civil last week to have paid up to €3,000 a year in exchange for doping products and specific training plans provided by the ring.
Swimmers, one of them underage, as well as cyclists and football players from across Spain and further afield are all reported to have been involved.
However, according to the El Periodico de España newspaper, the judge overseeing the case in Caceres has apparently refused to supply any names of Spain’s State Commission for Anti-Doping, the country’s anti-doping authority. The judge’s reasoning is that the case is ongoing and full statements by any potential witnesses have yet to be completed.
The deadlocked situation over anti-doping action has apparent superficial echoes of the scenario in Operación Puerto, where multiple names of implicated riders were never made officially public and subsequently sanctioned.
However, unlike Puerto, Ilex’s ‘ongoing’ status makes it impossible to predict if there will actually be a similar delay once the case is completed.
