Spain’s 2021 Olympic Games participation at risk in key court case over cyclist’s bio passport

Combined classification leader Ibai Salas Zorrozua (Burgos BH)
Ibai Salas Zorrozua (Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

A fast-looming Spanish court case verdict in 2021 over a former professional cyclist who challenged the use of the bio-passport could see the country’s participation in next summer’s Tokyo Olympics Games at risk.

Spain’s National Court, which has jurisdiction, among other areas, over medical fraud is set to rule in 2021 on a WADA appeal against a verdict issued in October by a regional court in Madrid. That verdict last October insisted that the biological passport lacked legal validity in Spain.

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Alasdair Fotheringham

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The IndependentThe GuardianProCycling, The Express and Reuters.