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DOPING

Cyclist forced to take dog medicines

Spanish former cyclist Jesus Manzano told a court on Wednesday he was given the blood-booster EPO and other animal medicines by a doctor accused of masterminding a vast blood-doping network.

Cyclist forced to take dog medicines
Manzano told a court on Wednesday he was given the blood-booster EPO and other drugs by Fuentes. Photo: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP

Manzano has alleged that he and other riders from the Kelme team were given drugs for dogs, cattle and horses when doctor Eufemiano Fuentes was part of the outfit.

He also implicated team manager Vicente Belda and trainer Jose Ignacio Labarta in the practice. Both are also in the dock.

"Yes, I was treated by doctor Eufemiano Fuentes," the 34-year-old told the hearing in Madrid. "I was treated with EPO in 2000, 2001 and 2003 by Eufemiano."

Fuentes has been charged with his sister Yolanda and three other defendants from cycling teams in connection with a blood doping racket, with dozens of suspects in cycling and possibly other sports.

The five are accused of endangering public health but not incitement to doping, which was not a crime in Spain at the time of their arrests in 2006. 

Manzano, who made similar accusations in a wide-ranging interview with Spanish sports daily AS in 2004, claims that his health was compromised by the substances given to him during his time with Kelme and recalled one occasion when he fainted during a stage of the Tour de France in 2003.

"I had taken oxyglobin intravenously, a haemoglobin for dogs (which increases oxygen levels in the blood), and Belda and Labarta knew, of course," Manzano said during evidence. 

"I attacked (French rider) Richard Virenque on a stage and I began to feel progressively worse until I fainted. In the team they asked me to not say what I had taken nor to do a test because it was in France and we would all go to jail."

The court was told that Manzano had been pressured into taking the substances by the trio.

"I took the medication because it was compulsory in the team. I never did it voluntarily. If I report them here (in Spain), I am sacked. If I did it in France, then all of Kelme would go to jail."

Manzano also went on to describe the lengths the team went to prevent its riders from testing positive. 

"They put a white powder on the penis to deteriorate the urine sample so that we didn't test positive for EPO," he said.

Fuentes, Labarta and Belda all deny endangering public health.

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SPORT

Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role

A nurse, one of the co-defendants in the trial of a German sports doctor accused of masterminding an international blood-doping network, described on Friday how she helped athletes dope with illicit blood transfusions.

Nurse weeps as tells German court of her blood doping role
Mark Schmidt talks to his lawyer in court. Photo: Peter Kneffel/AFP
Sports physician Mark Schmidt, 42, and four co-defendants who allegedly aided him, stand trial in Munich accused of helping at least two dozen athletes undergo blood transfusions to boost performance.
   
So far, 23 athletes — mainly skiers and cyclists — from eight countries are known to be involved.
   
If found guilty, Schmidt and his co-defendants face jail for up to 10 years under anti-doping legislation introduced in Germany in 2015.
   
One of the accused, named only as Diana S., told the court how she first helped Schmidt in December 2017 when she travelled to Dobbiaco, Italy, to administer a blood transfusion before a skiing competition.
   
Blood doping is aimed at boosting the number of red blood cells, which allows the body to transport more oxygen to muscles, thereby increasing stamina and performance.
   
 
“It was about transportation, blood and athletes, but at first I didn't know what was behind it,” she is quoted as saying by the German media.   
 
“The treatments were always such that before the race the blood was taken in and after the races, the blood came out.”
   
She claimed to have been given precise instructions “via WhatsApp or by phone calls” where to go, which car to take, who to treat and how much blood to take or inject.
   
The trained nurse, who often sobbed while speaking, was told to dispose the bags of used blood on her way home after the “treatments”.
 
The single mother of three said she was motivated to earn extra money, having been told she would earn 200 euros ($237) per day.
   
At one point, she claims she told Schmidt that she wanted to stop.
   
“I told him that I was too agitated and too scared” to keep doing the clandestine work, because a sense of “panic travelled with me”, but Schmidt convinced her to stay involved. “It is also true that I simply had a shortage of money.”
   
Schmidt is alleged to have helped skiers who competed at both the 2014 and 2018 Winter Olympics and cyclists who raced at the 2016 Rio summer Olympics, as well as the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.
   
He was arrested in Germany as part of Operation “Aderlass” — or “blood letting” in German — which involved raids at the Nordic world skiing championships in Seefeld, Austria in February 2019.
   
A verdict in the trial is expected by late December.
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