May 28, 2006 – The doping scandal in Spain continues to grow. With the recent arrrest of Liberty Seguros team manager Manolo Saiz, the affair has already lead American insurance company Liberty to rescind its support of the Spanish Liberty Seguros Team.

Saiz was released in time to hear Liberty’s decision last week – in a statement the insurance company stated that it “finds the consequences of Manolo Saiz’s arrest highly preoccupying.” The departure of Liberty means a possible 8 million Euro loss for the team.

According to a recent Agence France Presse (AFP) report, Jan Ulrich, the 1997 Tour de France winner and leader of the German powerhouse road team T-Mobile, has denied accusations of being linked to Liberty-Seguros doctor, Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes.

“I’ve never worked with Fuentes”, declares Ulrich on T-Mobile’s web site. In Ulrich’s corner is Christian Frommert, T-Mobile’s Communications Director adding, “They will try to implicate the big names in cycling, but Jan has never had anything to do with it.” T-Mobile Team doctor Lothar Heinrich also states that Ulrich is clean. Current Giro d’Italia winner Ivan Basso (CSC) this past week also denied knowing or having dealt with Dr. Fuentes.

Operation “Puerto” has been on-going since February 2006, and thus far has yielded five arrests and two seizures for a suspected “doping ring operating at a professional level in cycling.” Using surveillance, investigators discovered the illegal ring based in a Madrid apartment. In addition to material for blood transfusions, the AFP report indicates that the Spanish Civil Guard also found “sizeable quantities of steroids, anabolisants, hormones, and various medications, including EPO and growth hormones.” The report says “more than 100 pockets of frozen blood and blood plasma, as well as numerous documents related to blood doping procedures and training/doping “˜diaries’ of more than 200 top cyclists” was also found.

Due to the short one-week “˜life-span’ of blood products, the blood packs are suspected to be for use this season, including the Tour de Belgique, the Giro d’Italia, and the Tours of Bavaria and Alentejo (in Portugal).

Aside from Saiz and Fuentes, (former team doctor for multiple Spanish teams, including Kelme and Once), others detained in the investigation are Ignacio Labarta, Assistant Director Sportif of TeamValance, José Luis Merino, a Madrid-based doctor, and mountain-bike racer Alberto Leon.