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  Tour de France: Inside the Blood Doping Investigation

Tour de France Inside the Blood Doping Investigation

Part 2: A changing corporate culture

Last week, however, it became clear that times have changed at the company's Bonn headquarters. When three T-Mobile riders were forced to admit to the Ferrari connection that had been reported in newspaper articles, their sponsor demanded that they immediately sever all ties to the doctor.

T-Mobile executives acted with similar resolve when Ullrich's relationship with Fuentes appeared to have been proven. For a company that pumps an estimated €12 million each year into its cycling sponsorships to improve its image, the Spanish doctor must be a persona non grata.

The first case of performance enhancement to which Fuentes has been linked was a family affair. It happened in the mid-1980s, and the athlete in question was Cristina Pérez, Fuentes's wife.

A few years later, Fuentes, after developing contacts to the cycling scene, became team physician for various profession teams, ultimately even becoming their training and competition strategist. The physician never seemed to be bothered by persistent rumors of his involvement in doping activities. "I was always under suspicion," he says, "but nothing ever happened."

The more successful his riders became, the safer and more confident Fuentes felt. Before a difficult individual time trial in the 1991 Tour of Spain, or Vuelta, the doctor was sitting on a plane bound for the Spanish Mediterranean island of Mallorca. Fuentes told journalists also traveling on the flight that the cooler on the seat next to him contained "the key to victory in the Vuelta." His comments proved to be true, when a pro on the team sponsored by Fuentes's employer at the time, Once, won not only the difficult time trial but also the overall tour.

The specialized doctor experienced a setback in his career in the spring of 2004. In an interview with sports publication As, Jesús Manzano, a professional rider on the Kelme team, discussed his team's doping practices after almost losing his life during a blood transfusion. However, the investigation against Fuentes, the Kelme team's physician at the time, was quickly dropped for lack of evidence.

The industry proved to be forgiving, as it usually is, and Fuentes's services remained in demand. The fact that he was able to turn himself into a performance enhancement guru also has something to do with Spain's permissive laws, which have only recently become more rigorous.

A paradise for performance enhancement

Besides, until now there has been very little public pressure in Spain to prosecute those involved in performance enhancement. Even El País, an investigative newspaper that now leads the pack in reporting on "Operation Mountain Pass," was long averse to even addressing the topic.

This atmosphere allowed Spain to develop into a paradise for athletes interested in performance enhancement. The first reports about compliant doctors and well-equipped laboratories began making the rounds in the track and field world in the late 1990s. The suspicion that a network had developed in this environment was confirmed last year when the police staged a spectacular coup against the drug cartel. In a series of raids on the Spanish mainland, as well as on the Canary and Balearic Islands, police secured 10 tons of illegal doping products.

Since the trial of former sprint trainer Thomas Springstein in Germany, anti-doping activists there, like Heidelberg cell biologist Werner Franke, have openly referred to the so-called "Spanish connection." In March, a court in Magdeburg gave the eastern German track and field coach a 16-month suspended sentence for supplying drugs to minors. The investigation had revealed that Springstein was regularly in contact with Miguel Angel Peraita, a Madrid physician.

During a search of Springstein's home, the police seized a folder containing faxes and email printouts. In some emails, Springstein, whose screen name was "Top.speed," inquired about advances in genetic doping. In others, he asked Peraita (screen name "Top Doc") for his views on the respective advantages of testosterone creams and insulin injections.

Germany's National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) in Bonn now has portions of this incriminating file at its disposal and is trying to uncover links between Fuentes and Peraita, whose medical practice is located on Madrid's Calle Fernández de la Hoz -- just a few steps from Fuentes's apartment and Merino Batres's blood laboratory. NADA Director Roland Augustin firmly believes that "we are dealing here with a complex system of fraud and deception."

According to the Guardia Civil investigation, at least one other German joins Ullrich among the ranks of suspect cyclists. On May 14, Jörg Jaksche, 29, a native of the southern German town of Ansbach, was captured on hidden camera when he met with Fuentes in Room 605 at Madrid's Hotel Puerta. During their search of Fuentes's apartment nine days later, the police discovered three bags of blood labeled with the date of the meeting and the code name "Bella (Jorg)." Investigators believe the code name refers to Jaksche, who came in 16th in the last Tour de France. They assume that the German cyclist gave blood at the meeting, so that the blood could be condensed in a centrifuge at Fuentes's lab and later re-injected.

Jaksche's name also appears on a document that lists precisely how the Spanish cycling team, Liberty Seguros, was supplied with performance-enhancing drugs in 2005. According to the investigators' document 24, during the course of the previous year Jaksche received EPO, anabolic steroids, growth hormones and IGF-1 -- "combined with blood donations, blood transfusions and analyses." When asked to comment on the claims, Jaksche referred SPIEGEL to his cycling team's spokesman who, however, had declined to comment by the newsmagazine's publication deadline.

The rise of blood doping

There are several reasons why transfusions of their own blood has apparently developed into a phenomenon among professional cyclists. In times of reduced advertising and sponsorship budgets, the competition for jobs in the cycling business is becoming tougher than ever. Most riders are given contracts for only one or two years. Winning a stage in a tour practically guarantees a cyclist an extension of his contract.

Young riders, like German first-time Tour competitor Markus Fothen, 24, can hardly believe how the field surges ahead as soon as the referee drops the start flag. Fothen says that no matter how rigorous their training, many riders are quickly left in the dust.

The stages are being completed at faster and faster speeds. Last year, Lance Armstrong slammed through the race at an average pace of 41.65 kilometers per hour (25.88 mph). At speeds like that, it seems only logical that some riders would be attracted to using drugs to better prepare themselves for the French race or help them regain their strength overnight during the three-week event. Recharging their energy with transfusions of their own blood seems an elegant solution to many any athlete.

"Top athletes simply lack a sense of this practice being wrong," complains NADA director Augustin. Athletes, he says, reason that, after all, they aren't adding any foreign substances to their bodies.

According to Augustin, many see the use of transfusions of one's own banked blood as no different from the autohemotherapy practiced by alternative medicine practitioners.

But that belief is wholly incorrect. In autohemotherapy, a small amount of blood previously drawn from a patient is injected into the same patient's muscles. Practitioners believe the method stimulates immune processes in the body. When athletes engage in blood doping, up to one liter of their own blood is drawn. When the concentrate of red blood cells, obtained through centrifugation, is re-introduced into the blood stream, the athlete faces the risk of thrombosis and embolism -- both deadly risks. According to Augustin, the practice is like "playing with fire."

DETLEF HACKE, UDO LUDWIG, GERHARD PFEIL, MICHAEL WULZINGER

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan