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The Spanish public prosecutor overseeing the Operation Ilex anti-doping probe has recommended a significant scaling back in the potential legal consequences of the case, even as a wealth of fresh details has emerged about the long-standing investigation into an alleged trafficking ring of both permitted and illegal sports performance-enhancing substances.
Colombian cycling star Miguel Angel López, who currently remains suspended by the UCI for potential anti-doping offences, has been linked through Ilex to Doctor Marcos Maynar, the university professor who allegedly masterminded the ring. Both Maynar and López have repeatedly said they are innocent of any wrongdoing.
According to El País, in December the state prosecutor overseeing the case recommended in a report that the number of individuals that could face charges be reduced to four of the eight initially under investigation: Maynar, the former sports director Vicente Belda and two other individuals, not professional bike racers, who allegedly formed part of the commercial side of the ring.
El Pais quoted the prosecutor’s report as saying there was not enough evidence of direct doping to move further ahead with other charges, with the report apparently stating “it was not sufficiently demonstrated which athlete was due to receive [injectable medical products].”
Nor was it possible to show, the report added, “which race they [the products] were connected with, nor if they were actually used or had a particular effect [on performance], nor what degree of risk was involved [by using them].”
Parts of the prosecutor’s report were published in multiple Spanish media on Sunday alongside fresh details of the official police report into Ilex, including tapped phone conversations and text messages said to be from López, Maynar and others caught up in the case.
According to at least four different Spanish media sources, the official police report claims evidence shows that López had multiple different medications and vitamins recommended by Maynar for his consumption during the countdown to the 2022 Giro d’Italia, including one codenamed ‘testis’ and another ‘coconut oil’.
According to the police report, after investigators tapped a phone call, one parcel containing one of these products was located en route to one of Maynar’s intermediaries and opened before being allowed to continue to its destination and, ultimately, López.
The report says the package was found to contain four vials of the banned product Menotropin with the name on the glass partly scratched out.
One of the substances police claim to have been provided by Maynar and then taken by López was said to have sparked a negative reaction in one of his legs. He subsequently abandoned the Giro d’Italia almost immediately after it returned from its first three stages in Hungary to home soil in Sicily.
After an initial suspension and subsequent reinstatement because of his alleged links to the case, Astana definitively sacked López in December 2022.
Lopez’s suspension last July came after the International Testing Agency (ITA), the independent body that performs anti-doping controls and investigations for the UCI and other Olympic sports, obtained evidence from Operation Ilex.
Last year Maynar defended himself according to the EFE press agency. “All the leaks that have been made have been intended to hurt me, I assume it because I’m used to it, although then I have won the trials … but it is unacceptable that other people are making life impossible, and it will be shown that they have nothing to do with it, that’s not fair,” Maynar said.
“We believe that everything that has been done is within the law and for the purposes of what the university has to be, which is to open our knowledge and activities to society, which is what we have tried, and that many people from Extremadura have benefited from everything we have done from the faculty,” he stated.
