The former team manager of one of the best Spanish professional teams, Manolo Saiz, has made a surprise appearance on television, and the host didn’t pull any punches. Saiz, who managed what was originally Once, then Liberty Seguros-Würth, and later Astana Team, was arrested in connection with the Operación Puerto drug scandals in 2006. He quit from cycling, and his company lost its ProTour license. It would be transferred to the Astana team. Operación Puerto was the the code name a Spanish Police investigation into Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes and his alleged doping network.
The investigation began in 2004, following an interview with Jesus Manzano in the Spanish newspaper Diario AS. Manzano spoke candidly about blood doping on his former team, the Colombian squad, Kelme. He said that many riders on the team used both blood booster as well as other performance-enhancing drugs, and it was under the supervision of the team doctor, Fuentes.
Two years later, the Spanish Civil guard would arrest Saiz, as well as Fuentes and other staff members. They would raid several houses belonging to staff and riders, including one that Fuentes owned. At that house, the police found hundreds of doses of anabolic steroids and blood products as well as centrifuges.
“Until 2003, no blood transfusion was ever done by anyone on the ONCE team”, Manolo Saiz said when asked by Spanish reporter Carlos de Andrés about doping on the television set of La Vuelta 2022.
Once he was effectively banned from cycling, from both the teams themselves and the International Association of Professional Cycling Groups (AIGCP), Saiz would move into the hospitality business. He has not been seen in the public eye for some time, and has certainly not spoken much about cycling.
When de Andrés asked Saiz if he denied that his team ever did blood transfusions, he was quick to answer.
“Like I said, until 2003, no blood transfusion was ever done. With the ONCE team, there was never ever, a blood transfusion that was done.”
“And then?” de Andrés asked.
“Then I don’t know. I have doubts, and I know that there are brokers of mine, as the sentence says, who ask me for permission to go to work with Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, and I gave them permission.”
You can watch some of the interview in Spanish below.
🗣️Manolo Saiz (@Manolo_Saiz), exdirector de la ONCE, explica su adiós al ciclismo tras la Operación Puerto en <a…< a=””></a…<>
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