Nuria Fernández Responds to Doping Rumors

Translated by Stewart Atkins for LetsRun.com
December 15, 2010

Headline: Nuria Fernández: “My mother thought I had been arrested”

“She fell apart when they said I had doped,” the athlete said in a round-table with students

EP. Madrid 12/15/10

Nuria Fernández did not want to talk about Operation Galgo, the investigation implicating her coach, Manuel Pascua, as well as Spain’s track and field star, Marta Domínguez, world champion in the 3000 meter steeplechase. 

The Madrilian, along with her teammates Chema Martínez, Jesús España, and Arturo Casado, was participating in a round table called “Preparing for Success” and did not speak publicly about the subject of doping.  “I’ve already said everything I can say.  It’s an on-going investigation and besides I’m under a gag order." 

In addition, Fernández spoke out against unscrupulous reporting in the press.  “I read articles and sometimes they’re just not true.  It’s damaging.  Last week I was training at the INEF and I got a text from my mother that said, ‘Oh my god.  They say you’ve been arrested and that you’ve been doping.’  She just about fell apart.” 

The Spanish 1500 meter indoor record-holder didn’t have to search for words to describe what the past few days have been like for her.  “It’s horrible.  I just want them to check their facts beforehand because when they’re wrong it’s incredibly damaging and the whole thing is exhausting.  But we’ve got to keep fighting and moving forward.”

 

More Spanish Doping Translations: *Spanish Athletics Doping Scandal: A Bags Of Blood from Operation Puerto in 2006 Was Linked to Marta Dominguez and Helped Kick Off This Probe
*Marta Domínguez: "I've Never Dealt Drugs."
*Last Year's European XC Champ Alemayehu Bezabeh Admitted He Was Just About To Transfuse A Bag Of Blood Bezabah apparently thought there was nothing wrong with it and for some reason we believe he's telling the truth. "He told me that he was just about to tap the bag, and when I told him that this was doping and that he couldn't be on the team, he was shocked."
*Jesus España: "It was a well-known secret"
*"It's very easy to walk into a doctor's office with 7,000 bucks in your pocket (5,000 euros) and tell the doctor that 'the time has come to reach my full potential. Do anything you have to do, here are my veins. Just make me into a champion.' I could have done that."

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