The 2008 Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre has said he believes the media should show caution when dealing with doping investigations such as the new Operación Galgo (Operation Greyhound) affair, suggesting that newspapers and others are rushing to judgement to sell more copies.
“There's always people interested in getting revenue from these situations, when what needs to be done is to wait until the courts pass sentence and then the guilty pay,” Marca reported him as saying. He was appearing in
Cáceres at the screening of a documentary on him entitled, “Una Jornada con Carlos Sastre” (a Day with Carlos Sastre).
“There are always people who seem to have a special interest in the shadow of the suspicion of doping, stalking other sportsmen and other sports.”
A total of 16 people were arrested last Thursday, including Operación Puerto-implicated individuals such as Eufemiano Fuentes, his sister Yolanda and Alberto León, as well as the 2009 world 3000 metres steeplechase champion Marta Dominguez, who was acting as the vice president of the Spanish Athletics Federation, her trainer Cesar Perez and the successful Spanish coach Manuel Pascua Piqueras.
The latter’s brother José Luis was also detained by police, but was later released without charge. While many of the others are involved in the world of athletics, Pascua is well known as a cycling coach. He previously worked with a number of top riders, including Pedro Delgado, Marino Lejarreta, Santiago Blanco, Chava (Jose Maria) Jimenez, Oscar Pereiro and Sastre himself.
There is no firm link between the investigation and cycling at this point in time. Fuentes is known to work with competitors from other sports, and allegedly told a cellmate during his arrest that if he speaks, that Spanish football would lose its 2010 World Cup and 2008 European Championship titles.
While most of the focus has been on athletics plus Fuentes’ suggestion that soccer could also be involved, Sastre complains that cycling has become a soft target in recent years. He referred to cyclists being ‘so very weak in this sense that they are all affected more than they should be.”
To date, six people including Fuentes and León have been charged and will appear in court at a later date.