Operation Ilex | Vicente Belda opens up on Miguel Ángel López and Marcos Maynar: "They set me up to take the product to Hungary"

Vicente Belda, the former assistant to Miguel Ángel López in the Astaná team, has broken his silence and has given his version of what happened with the Colombian cyclist and of Operation Ilex and Marcos Maynar.

In an interview with Nacho Labarga in Marca, the son of the former sporting director of the Kelme team hints that he knows nothing about the possible irregularities of Miguel Ángel López.

The main part of the interview is what he answers when he is asked that in his statement in court he said that he had been set up. That is where the name of Miguel Ángel López comes into play:

"Miguel Angel calls me and tells me he's going to send me a package with supplementation to take to the Giro because he's in Andorra and the package won't get home in time. He wants me to take it to him. In principle I don't object because it was a normal thing to do. Cyclists, who are often away from home or their country, send things to your house for you to take them home. That week I received gels from one brand, salts from another... I didn't think much of it. I thought it was supplementation that I had received. When the day before going to Hungary I was preparing my suitcase to go to the Giro, I saw that they were ampoules and I threw them away. Seeing the conversations later between the two (Maynar and Lopez), it makes me think that they set me up to take the product to Hungary".

He then claims that when the package arrived he saw that they were ampoules and that he threw them away because you can't transport non-team medicines (remember that both he and Lopez were at Astana at the time). "I don't know what it is that comes to me. When I see that they are ampoules I throw them away because carrying them is forbidden by the team. Although they are legal, we have internal rules in the team where it is forbidden to carry any kind of medication. The moment I see that they are ampoules, I throw them away. I don't take any risks!

He says that 'Superman' Lopez as he is known told him that the contents of the packages were not illegal. "Superman arrives the same day I arrived. During that same week he asked me if I had brought him the supplementation. I told him yes, but not the last package because they were ampoules and I couldn't transport them. He told me that he did not know what the package was, but that it was not illegal. He tells me 'don't worry, it's nothing illegal'. I didn't take a gamble. I threw them away and that was it. It was quick because he arrived in Hungary already injured and was more worried about the injury than the supplementation."

However, he claims that the Colombian rider was already injured when he arrived in Hungary and that he did not take any injections there:

"Something in the quadriceps of the left injury. A week or so later he had an echo and it showed a muscle tear. When he landed in Hungary he was more worried about the injury than the packs. He was already injured when he arrived in Hungary. It is not as many say that I injected him and he got injured. He arrived injured. We suspected it was the same injury as other times."

Very confusing statements made by Belda Jr. to Labarga in Marca. Very confusing. On the one hand he claims that he threw the blisters, on the other that MAL and Maynar wanted to cheat him, then he denies that the Colombian has doped and ends up stating that he could be willing to denounce him. We will see how the case is resolved in the Spanish justice system, although everything points to the fact that neither Lopez nor Belda will be accused of anything;