Buenos Aires (AFP)
Mariano Puerta, tested positive for a doping product after the final of Roland-Garros 2005, admitted Monday to having lied before the sports authorities to obtain a reduction of his sanction.
Beaten by Spaniard Rafael Nadal, the Argentinian had tested positive for etilefrin, a banned product, and had been suspended for eight years. Before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne, he succeeded in July 2006 in having his sanction reduced to 24 months.
"The explanation we used as a strategy (of defense, editor's note) was a lie. But I didn't get any sporting advantage from it. I don't want to be seen as a cheater anymore," said the former tennis player, retired for 11 years, for the Argentinian daily La Nacion.
Already suspended for doping with clenbuterol in 2003, Puerta had justified this new positive control by telling that he had drunk before the final in the glass of his companion, who was taking a drug containing etilefrin, a cardiac stimulant.
According to his statements to La Nacion, it would actually come from the fact that he had taken a food supplement based on "caffeine and ginseng" whose pills, acquired from a friend of his physical trainer, contained traces of the doping product. .
"There was nothing we could do because the pills had been bought, how shall I put it ... not legally. There was no invoice. My lawyers thought it was not a good idea to say what was wrong. had happened, that it would not please (the CAS) ", assures the former world number 9.
His ex-physical trainer Dario Lecman, cited by La Nacion, doubts his version. "I have nothing to do (with this case). I didn't give him anything. It's not true (that one of his friends got Puerta some pills," he says.
His former coach Andrés Schneiter also doubts his version.
Puerta, who had to pay a $ 900,000 fine, returned to the circuit in 2007, after his suspension, without ever regaining his previous level.
© 2020 AFP