José Luis Terreros (San Asensio, La Rioja, 68 years old) has had a moment of satisfaction after a dark period in which he fell into a depression after being dismissed as director of the Spanish anti-doping agency, officially called the Spanish Agency for the Protection of Health in Sports (CELAD). On January 26, he was removed by the governing council of this organization chaired by José Manuel Uribes, secretary of state for Sports and president of the Higher Sports Council (CSD), after a CELAD official reported alleged irregularities in the body. directed by Terreros and that Uribes sent to the Prosecutor’s Office in case they constituted a crime. Ten months later, the prosecutor has filed the case after finding no evidence of guilt.
And José Luis Terreros is now suffering from a dismissal from which, he claims, he could not defend himself. «Uribes, Minister Alegría, the Government in short, they have made a fool of themselves. Together they have made the world believe that Spain is a country of cheaters,” he tells ABC.
Terreros has demons coming out because of the action that he considers partial by the CSD. «I can only think about the filth that exists in the CSD and in the Ministry of Education. If they had asked me from day one, I would have explained things as they are, as I have done with previous secretaries of state. They have all met with me every time there have been cases and nothing has ever happened. And I was there for seven years. But they resolved it like that.”
Terreros had planned to retire last summer, he says, and his dismissal brought forward the deadlines. «They have done irreparable damage to me, to my reputation, but above all to Spanish sport and the anti-doping fight. They have made the world think the same old thing again, that all the secretaries of state have cheated, that all “Spanish athletes are cheaters.”
The doctor and surgeon raised in Aragon defends his management. «In this business we deal with athletes who dope, who are cheaters and who have lawyers who defend them in any way possible. You are permanently in litigation, in court, with lawsuits for prevarication… It happened to me and to all the directors of the anti-doping agencies in the world. But the governments defend their leaders, “They don’t send them to the Prosecutor’s Office.”
“In Spain it was not like in Russia, we had nothing to hide,” says the former leader. I have greeted Minister Alegría once, I do not know Uribes personally. I asked for meetings, they lied to me, they delayed me and I was never able to explain myself to him. If they had told me ‘we want you to leave’, I would have accepted it, but not that they accuse me of corruption. The Prosecutor’s Office dedicated itself to investigating and there is no hidden positive, no wasted money. “Everything is false.”
The former director of Spanish anti-doping admits “many mistakes during seven years, I’m sure I have made them, but none due to corruption. If we did checks with one or two agents, it was the same thing that the previous directors of the Agency did. In the many positive cases, sometimes they resort to Litigation, other times to CAS, but generally the Agency won.
Errors
He does not consider it a mistake to have paralyzed the adverse cases of biological passports, positive sanctionable cases that the courts annulled since the ruling in favor of the cyclist Ibai Salas was produced. «Those with the biological passport that I could sanction, I have sanctioned, and they were taken down in court. I appealed to them and they are pending the appeal. And it would have continued to the Supreme Court. Those that were impossible, I have passed on to the international federations so that they can sanction them. Of these there were three cases. Two others pending appeals. “Five in total.”
Terreros introduces a name on the board, Alejandro Blanco, the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE). «Given the situation that was created, and I don’t know why, Blanco saw the opportunity to thrive and said ‘I’ll solve this.’ He spoke with Witold Banka (president of the AMA) and accused us of doing everything very badly. But that’s not what the CCC (Code Compliance Center) was saying. This center tells you what you have done wrong, the time you have to restore it, etc. And we were at zero. Just three days after my dismissal, Alejandro Blanco came out saying that we would have no problems at the Paris Games. “I imagine they would have an interest in freeing them from a person they felt was a threat.”
Terreros tells another case. «On January 11 there was an order from the Provincial Court of Madrid, Elia Navarro, weightlifter, about whether we had done the check with one or two agents. The car said that there was no crime or anything strange. Archived topic. “He lost in all judicial instances.” Who was the lawyer?, he is asked. “Alberto Yelmo,” he answers.
«Yelmo’s contract at the Agency ran out and I didn’t renew it and he took it as if I had killed him. This lawyer started looking for athletes in the ‘Sanciona2’ portal and he offered to defend them for free.
«They have made the most horrible fool of themselves, they have made the world believe that our country is a bunch of cheats. The current Secretary of State was Minister of Education when I was in the Agency. I say that he would also be involved in this mess of corruption. He became a good friend of Alejandro Blanco. Uribes and Irene Lozano (former Secretary of State for Sports) were not on speaking terms. And Blanco was his advisor. Uribes did not speak to me, but I did meet with Lete, Rienda, Lozano, Franco… And everyone knew how we worked.
«To cheat on doping issues, you have to be like in Russia, an organized apparatus to falsify evidence -says Terreros-. Every time there is a positive, the AMA knows it instantly.
After the departure of Terreros, CELAD has had two directors. Silvia Calzón, that I was there for a little over eight months and left due to the call of Pedro Sánchez for his presidential cabinet, and Carlos Peralta, the new occupant of the position.
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