The 27-year-old Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno was the first athlete to fail the doping test in 2008 Beijing Olympics reported by the Olympics 2008 News. Moreno was tested positive for the performance-enhancing blood booster EPO. According to International Olympic Committee (IOC) Spokeswoman, Giselle Davies, said that Moreno was immediately disqualified from the games after she failed a doping test performed on July 31.

Because of the incident, Moreno was laid down with two-year ban for cheating. Apart from that, she also faced several sanctions included in the cycling body. Los Angeles Times featured the summarized sanctions of the IOC Executive Board for Moreno for her steroid use involvement. Two of the sanctions are her disqualification from the XXIX Olympiad Games in Beijing 2008 and the cancellation and withdrawal of her Olympic accreditation and identity card. Meanwhile, her file was transferred to the International Cycling Union (UCI), which is asked to do further action contained by its own competency.

Moreno immediately left China the night after she heard her test result; failing to pursue her scheduled competition for the road race for women and individual home trial. An official of Spanish cycling federation who escorted Moreno to the drug test in Olympic village said that Moreno had been crying upon knowing the result and requested to return to Madrid right away just before the result was formally announced.

Cycling officials claimed they have given enough warnings to the athletes just before the Beijing Games began reported by the Fox Sports. According to them, following the rites of the weightlifters when it comes to steroid use will only result to disqualification from the games. Unfortunately, the lesser-performing athletes like Moreno might have wanted to boost her agility for the competition reason why she relied on performance-enhancing substances.

According to the report of The Earth Times, cycling has been linked to doping for the past years and Spain, the country represented by Moreno, is actually one of the countries that are overwhelmed with substance abuse. Examples of other Spanish athletes who were linked to steroid use are Manuel Beltran, Nevado, and Moses Duenas. The three of them tested positive for EPO, the same drug that was used by Moreno. Currently, Moreno is the latest cyclist to test positive for performance-enhancing drugs after Marta Bastinelli, the world’s road race champion, and Riccardo Ricco, the Italy’s Tour de France stage winner.

Now, Spanish officials are calling the attention of Moreno to collaborate with the authorities according to the report of Los Angeles Times. They are asking Moreno to confess the identity of her performance-enhancer drugs supplier.

Apparently, what happened to Moreno is such a disgraceful event. She had placed her name in shame due to wrong use of performance-enhancing drugs. Such event is certainly strange for she had wasted all her efforts on her hard trainings by opting to cheating; giving her a public humiliation in return. Sure, if only she played the game fairly she could have spared her name from getting tarnished including the name of the country she is representing.

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