The scenario seems straight out of a bad movie, but nothing could be further from the truth; Spanish athlete Celestino Fernandez, Spanish Champion Duathlon in 2022, was acquitted of doping this week by a Spanish judge for a very special reason. This is because the urine, on which a positive doping test was performed, was not Fernandez’s. A DNA test showed that. His five-year suspension, which began in April 2024, will be lifted immediately. According to Spanish anti-doping agency CELAD, a mistake was made during the identification and storage of the urine.
Fernandez tested positive in a doping control after a Spanish cycling race in which he participated in 2023. However, the Spanish athlete has always pleaded his innocence and on three occasions asked CELAD to perform a DNA test on the positive urine sample. CELAD refused three times, before Fernandez went to civil court. There, in September 2024, it was decided that a DNA test should be performed on the positive sample in Madrid.
That DNA test revealed in late November that the urine did not belong to Celestino Fernandez, but to another rider. How the switching of the urine could have happened is still far from clear, but the fact that things went wrong at CELAD and especially that a DNA test was refused three times makes the Spanish press particularly critical of the doping agency at the moment.
Fernandez is logically happy with the outcome. “From day one I challenged this decision with the Spanish anti-doping agency and asked for a DNA test to prove my innocence, but this was refused to me three times, until the agency decided to suspend me for five years in April 2024. Fortunately, I was able to obtain through court that the DNA test was still performed. The results are conclusive: the male genetic profile of the sample differs from my genetic profile,” said Fernandez, who has been allowed to return to races immediately.
