Civil Guards raid Marta Domínguez's home in wide anti-doping sweep

Spanish sport on Thursday was hit by another doping scandal on the scale of the 2006 Operation Puerto probe into a blood transfusion ring uncovered in Madrid in May that year. The country's most decorated athlete, world 3,000m steeplechase champion Marta Domínguez, was arrested at her home in Palencia on suspicion of supplying banned substances to other athletes, sources close to the investigation said.

The athlete, who is pregnant and out of competition, was yesterday being questioned in the Civil Guard headquarters in Palencia. Domínguez is not accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs- which carries an administrative sanction- but could face charges for supply, a criminal offense.

Also arrested in the swoop carried out in Madrid, Las Palmas and Palencia, were Domínguez's manager, José Alonso Valero; her coach, César Pérez; Manuel Pascua Piqueras, a renowned coach currently training top Spanish athletes Reyes Estévez, Alemayehu Bezabeh and Nuria Fernández; and the alleged ringleader of Operation Puerto, Eufemiano Fuentes.

The Civil Guard probe into Puerto led it to various packages of blood with coded labels. The fallout saw Spanish cyclist Alejandro Valverde banned by the Italian Olympic Committee for two years while Alberto Contador, currently under provisional suspension for a positive test for clenbuterol at this year's Tour de France, was also implicated.

Separately, the Civil Guard searched the home of Alberto León, accused of being Fuentes' logistics manager in Operation Puerto, and detained the athlete in El Escorial, Madrid.

Athletics has largely avoided being tainted by the various doping scandals to engulf Spanish sport in recent years. Paquillo Fernández, an Olympic silver medalist race-walker, admitted possessing blood boosters earlier this year after another investigation, Operation Grial, uncovered the substances at his home, but he denied ever having used them. He was banned for two years and is aiding the Civil Guard in this latest operation.

"It's shocking news but everybody is innocent until proven guilty," 800m European silver medalist Mayte Martínez said. "If those implicated have a clear conscience, as I would if I was in that situation, nothing will come of it."