Pat McQuaid had only been the president of the International Cycling Union (UCI) for eight months when the governing body’s lawyer, Philippe Verbiest, knocked on his office door on the morning of May 23, 2006. “He came in and said: ‘Pat, a big scandal is about to drop in Spain’.”

Not another one , McQuaid would have been forgiven for uttering. At the time, cycling was a byword for cheating. Eight years earlier, the Festina affair had almost led to the Tour de France’s abandonment, while just months before McQuaid assumed the presidency role at the UCI, Lance Armstrong won the last of his seven yellow jerseys — victories he’d eventually be stripped of in 2012.

The last thing cycling wanted — or needed — was another seismic doping episode, and especially not during the final week of the Giro d’Italia, which was happening concurrently. But that’s exactly what transpired.

What unfolded was a scandal that even today has more unanswered than answered questions, with many of the rumored athletes involved never being formally linked to Fuentes. It would taint Spain’s sporting reputation for decades to come. But along the way, cycling would become the sport in focus, unfairly McQuaid believes, with a Tour de France winner and a Giro D’Italia champion temporarily banned from the sport.

This article was published by The Athletic/New York Times in May 2026. You can read the full article here.