As expected, the Spanish prosecution in the Operacion Puerto case has appealed the judge’s decision to shelve the whole shootin’ match:

In the appeal, the prosecutor has argued that the methods of blood storage and transfusion used by two of the people questioned, doctors Eufemiano Fuentes and Jose Luis Merino, contravened existing health legislation.

He has also asked for further analysis of the products uncovered in the investigation, and called for the interrogation of cyclists implicated to be completed.

And either I’d missed this wee factoid back when this whole thing came out last year or it’s a newer piece of news about the bags of blood which were confiscated in the Operacion Puerto raids:

The artificial form of the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) was subsequently found in eight out of 99 bags analysed.

I’m not trying to downplay this, but only eight bags? Wow.

In other OP news, Podium Cafe has a question for us:

My question is if Fuentes was treating 200 athletes and 58 of them were cyclists, how come we haven’t heard anything about the other 142 athletes that aren’t cyclists?

Good damned question.

One of the comments on that post has an interesting perspective, too:

There is that unfortunate fact that this was a police investigation, and there weren’t any crimes committed.

Even if Fuentes, Labarta, et. al. were “endangering public health”, that would make the athletes victims, not suspects.

I really, really hope that the files are turned over to the UCI, FIFA, and the ITF and athletes who cheated are held responsible. Still, cheating in a sport isn’t a crime.

Again, I really want Basso, Valverde, Ullrich, Mancebo et al to either be banned or cleared, but they aren’t criminals. In the end the problem is systemic and if it is as widespread as OP and other scandals make it look, going after individuals can only be a small part of the solution.