One of the fundamental pillars of anti-doping is that there is harmony within countries and sports in how rules are interpreted and applied. Therefore, it is important to note that it has been reported that Spain is to reform its anti-doping legislation to improve the cooperation between the courts and sports disciplinary bodies, Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky said.
In an article written by Mark Elkington and edited by Pritha Sarkar for Reuters, it was reported that “it has been a contentious issue that the evidence uncovered in Spain’s anti-doping probe in 2006, known as Operacion Puerto, has not been made available to sporting bodies to decide upon possible punishments for sportsmen and women.”
The investigating judge has ruled there was insufficient evidence to prosecute for the only relevant offence in Spain at that time, which was for endangering public health.
“When doping cases arrive in the courts, sometimes they remain in a legal limbo,” Lissavetzky was quoted as saying in sports daily Marca on Tuesday. “We will look for formulas that will allow greater flexibility in these cases. This reform will be in line with the world anti-doping code.”
The ITU understands the need for harmonized rules and it can only benefit all athletes to have consistent ways of dealing with anti-doping violations. If you have a question about ITU’s Anti-doping programme, please contact the ITU Anti-doping Director at {encode=“leslie.buchanan@triathlon.org” title=“leslie.buchanan@triathlon.org”}
