Madrid - Spain plans a reform of its anti-doping laws in order to allow
sports federations access to court evidence gathered by state authorities against athletes under doping suspicion, sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky said. But Lissavetzky did not go into details, according to news reports from Wednesday.
A change of the laws will allow sports federations to impose
sanctions against athletes if necessary.
Spanish anti-doping laws came under fire during the Operacion Puerto probe in 2006.
Domestic and international sports federations received no details and were unable to apply sanctions against riders.
Three months ago Spanish authorities declined to hand over blood bags from the lab of suspected doctor Eufemiano Fuentes to the World Anti-Doping Agency and the Spanish
cycling federation.
More than 50 riders have been mentioned in connection with the probe, including former Tour de
France champ Jan Ullrich of
Germany and current champion Alberto Contador of Spain.
All riders apart from Italy's Ivan Basso, who partly confessed, have protested their innocence.
