Friday 21 November 2008

WADA sensation in Spain...

It's too darn bad that the world of WADA, when it was so close to her home, hadn't invited Cristina Pérez to come and speak to the audience.

Cristina WHO?



(photo credit Stern of Germany)


She's the wife of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, whose unsavoury practices apparently were the Golden Egg for more than Dick Pound, former President of WADA.

This next photo comes from an article in El Pais, the
Spanish newspaper, showing his departure from Jan Ullrich's 2008 trial, that forced his last team to pay up a good percentage of the salary they'd withheld on basis of insinuations of blood doping practices.



Cristina, who met her soul-mate at the ripe age of 13, when he was already practicing medicine, announced to the sporting world that she could 'open Pandora's box'... to which we think or thank her, for having announced that she UNCHAINED the locked box of Pandora, a tale in Spain of pain for the many athletes who are now seemingly freed of a burden with the closure of the 'Operacion Puerto' affair. Her encounters with the doctor helped in some way, one assumes from the context, with her sporting career and the Barcelona Olympics of 1992.

A noted aspect from this observer, often in Switzerland, reflects on how the local media's obsession remains, to announce this as 'the cycling affair Puerto', a designation that certainly instills in the minds of all media-readers, a limitation that cycling never deserved.

For all the years since the first rumours were verified, that there existed this infamous Doctor and his 'Black Book' of addresses, the sum total of named athletes who are NOT cyclists is too small to be even funny: Spain had a 'Wonder year' in 2008, including Rafaël Nadal's tennis exploits, its EuroFoot futbal team, and many others. Are they simply the best? Without proof, this blog makes no assertions.

However, as a devoted cycling fan, the rationale for submerging other sports-Athlete's membership in 'Club Fuentes' seems to indicate a strong bias against Cycling per se, or an institutional attitude that, we could posit, stated during the relevant years:

"we cannot attack futball (soccer) or other Big Money sports,
until we can get them on board."



Remember, FIFA was as late as the US professional leagues, in finding a 'need' to endorse WADA, and integrate its mission as their own (See our Crimes against Sportmanity article, from earlier in 2008).

Cristina, what's going on? Bad day in divorce court?

WADAwatch has long supported a stronger emphasis in Confession. Following this link will take you to a Google-eyed view of several pertinent WADAwatch posts.

Only a confession by GW Bush (Or Cheney, or Rumsfeld...) could carry more weight than a cathartic cleansing of Athletes' souls... but WADAwatch reminds its readers and the World of WADA itself, that those who need to confess are more than a collection of Athletes gone wrong. Their personal and professional entourages, their Drug company suppliers, those governments whose bribed officials allow exportation of Testosterone and other substances while turning a blind eye... their wives? Daughters or sons?

Break the supply chains, put the fear of a God on someone, may always be a better strategy than to seek the end results from a plethora of laboratories who, in the long run, are not at all 'Standardized', 'Consistent' or simply: not able to follow the internationally-accepted Laboratory methodologies.


A post-script: WADAwatch will be attending
(Amongst other delights in London and the Suffolk region) a small seminar presentation this coming week, in London, at the Birkbeck University of London, on

An evaluation of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s (WADA)
impact on the problem of doping in elite sport


Hopefully a meaningful discussion will engage several business and legal aspects.

More in December!


No less fervent, if slightly more irregular, we're still watching...

................@...................WADAwatch
copyright 2008 Ww




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