Athletes back doping probe

Spain has been shocked by the news that Dominguez, perhaps the country's best-known athlete, had her house searched and was questioned by the civil guard under suspicion of trafficking and distributing banned substances.

"We are completely behind the judicial process that has started, and we think it is the correct path towards the eradication of doping in Spanish sport," read a statement on the REFA website that was signed by 61 athletes.

"Up to this moment, the system for detecting prohibited substances hasn't provided the results necessary for prevention.

"The cheats have enjoyed an exasperating impunity from the rest of the sportspeople who saw themselves condemned to compete in inferior conditions. This process is the light at the end of the tunnel...a new hope for a cleaner future."

Dominguez's arrest comes two months after Tour de France cycling winner Alberto Contador tested positive for a banned substance and was suspended, in a year when Rafa Nadal returned to be tennis world number one and the football team won the World Cup.

Spain's secretary for sport Jaime Lissavetzky said the investigation, in which 14 people were taken in for questioning, should not tarnish the country's recent sporting successes.

"Ninety-nine per cent of Spain's greatest successes in sport are not stained by doping in this 'Golden Era'," he said.

"The vast majority of sportspeople are clean. Spain is in the vanguard of the fight against doping."

Earlier on Friday, the RFEA provisionally suspended Dominguez from her prestigious post as a vice-president of the body.

"Given the events of yesterday relating to an alleged doping scheme in which you were implicated...I have decided to provisionally suspend your term as vice-president of the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation," the body's president Jose Maria Odriozola wrote in a letter to Dominguez, made public by the federation.

"I hope that these charges are swiftly resolved and we can learn the extent of your implication in this scheme as soon as possible."

Dominguez was released from police custody.

Luis Alberto Marco, the European indoor champion at 800 metres, was quoted in the media as saying: "It's a black day for Spanish athletics. It's sickening, I'm repulsed by my sport when things like this come out.

"On the other hand, I don't think my sport is to blame. (The blame is with) the people who are dirtying and robbing and staining those that fight for a clean sport."

One of Spain's best-known athletes Fermin Cacho, who won 1,500 metres gold at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, was quoted as saying: "I am frozen to stone. I cannot believe it."

Authorities said on Thursday police had raided 15 properties in an operation called Greyhound, discovering large quantities of anabolic steroids, bags of blood, hormones, EPO and laboratory equipment used for carrying out blood transfusions.

Sports doctors, pharmacists, trainers, coaches, representatives and sportspeople were among those detained.

Police said the operation began in April when they became aware of a group of people who appeared to be helping sports people at the highest level to use drugs.

Among those held were people implicated in the 2006 Operation Puerto anti-doping probe which rocked the world of cycling.