Doctors in doping probe may have German link

31 July 2006

MADRID – Spanish doctors implicated in a cycling doping probe may have received the forbidden substances out of Germany, Spain’s leading newspaper El Pais reported on Monday, citing police sources.

El Pais said investigators had directed their probe against a German doctor who works in a hospital in an unidentified small town.

The report also said that Spanish prosecutors were co-operating with their colleagues in Bonn, Germany, but Bonn prosecutors dismissed this.

“There has been no contact between Bonn and the Spanish authorities,” Bonn prosecutor Fred Apostel told Deutsche Presse- Agentur.

In the scandal centring on doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, more than 50 riders have been implicated, including former Tour de France winner Jan Ullrich and Giro d’Italia champion Ivan Basso. Ullrich has been kicked out of his T-Mobile team and Basso remains suspended by CSC.

According to El Pais, investigators believe that Fuentes formed a network with others and allegedly received an undetectable form of the EPO blood-doping substance from the German doctor.

Tapped phone conversations allegedly made investigators believe that Fuentes told athletes that after being found out in Spain they could continue getting forbidden substances in Germany.

Investigators were reportedly also looking into whether American Floyd Landis, who could be stripped of his 2006 Tour title due to a positive doping test for the steroid testosterone during the race, had contact with this network.

His Phonak team has a German doctor. Investigators were looking into whether Landis went to Germany for examinations last week at the doctor under investigation, with team-mates reportedly saying he went to Germany last week.

The German Phonak team doctor, Denise Demir, told the German Bild daily last week that she firmly believed in Landis’ innocence.

“We will put together a doctors report. Then the issue will likely continue before a court,” Demir told Bild.

DPA

Subject: German news