Operación Puerto doping case

On May 23, 2006, Spanish Guardia Civil arrested the directeur sportif of Liberty Seguros-Würth Manolo Saiz and four other people, including doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, accused of doping practices with several riders. Along with this detentions, Spanish police also raided several flats. In one of them, belonging to Fuentes, they found a thousand doses of anabolics and steroids, two hundred packets of blood and products and machines used to manipulate and transfuse it.

Sponsor Liberty Seguros decided to withdraw their sponsorship, considering the involvement of Saiz in the doping scheme harmed their reputation as well as cycling's.

The Guardia Civil also revealed that a list had been found containing a number of other cyclists' names, which were also involved in this scheme. As more and more names leaked to the press, such as Ivan Basso, Óscar Sevilla or Jan Ullrich, the teams began taking measures. T-Mobile Team asked its riders to sign a written statement that they had never worked with Fuentes, while Phonak Hearing Systems suspended Santiago Botero and José Enrique Gutiérrez, who had just finished second in the Giro d'Italia. Tour de France organisers ASO also considered withdrawing their invites to Würth and Comunitat Valenciana. On June 1, the directeur sportif of the latter, José Ignacio Labarta, resigned.

Meanwhile, Würth found a new sponsor, Kazakh capital Astana, and became Astana-Würth. ASO withdrew Comunitat Valenciana's wildcard invite, moving its riders to send blood samples to be analysed to prove their innocence. Nevertheless, the organisers of the Vuelta a España also began to consider expelling the team from their race.

After Spanish newspaper El País published secret details of Operación Puerto, Spanish riders boycotted the Spanish National Road Race Championships, which were cancelled after just 500 metres. After this publication, which involved many more riders, ASO sent a letter to Astana-Würth asking them not to take part in the Tour de France, which the team ignored. Jan Ullrich, linked to Fuentes by the newspaper, threatened to sue El País.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport said that Astana-Würth were to be accepted in the Tour de France, despite the organisers' protests. The Spanish authorities lifted the secret of summary two days before the start of the Tour, formally involving all 56 riders found in Fuentes' lists.

Because Jan Ullrich and Óscar Sevilla were in these lists, T-Mobile suspended them immediately. Their example was followed by Ivan Basso's Team CSC and Francisco Mancebo's AG2R Prévoyance. ASO demanded that all riders involved were withdrawn from the race by their teams, even though Astana-Würth had received the support of the CAS.

The day before the Tour de France, nevertheless, Astana-Würth yielded to the pressure of ASO and left their concentration for the French race. Five of their riders had been excluded by ASO for involvement in the doping scandal, and this left the team with only four riders (a team of at least six is required to race). Francisco Mancebo, fourth last year and involved in the case, decided to end his career, according to his DS Vincent Lavenu.