A Spanish court ruling coming in 2021 over a former professional cyclist who challenged the use of a bio-passport could jeopardize his participation in next summer's Tokyo Olympics.

Spain's National Court, which has jurisdiction over health care fraud and other cases, is set to rule in 2021 on WADA's appeal of an October verdict by a district court in Madrid. Last October's verdict argued that the biological passports lacked legal validity in Spain.

The Madrid case was brought by former Basque professional player Ibai Salas, who was suspended for four years and fined €3,001 due to information provided by a bio-passport issued to him in 2017.

"If the verdict [of the Madrid court] had been final because there was no appeal by WADA to the national court, it would have violated WADA's code requiring respect for the passport. Jose Luis Terreros, director of Spain's Agency for the Protection of Sport and Health, which oversees anti-doping testing in Spain, said in an interview with the state news agency EFE on Wednesday.

Failure to meet WADA regulations, such as not applying a biological passport, could result in suspension from sporting competitions and non-participation in the Olympics. Spain already received a suspension from the WADA Code in 2016 for failing to adapt anti-doping laws, but that suspension has since been lifted.

The 2021 national court ruling is expected to draw a decisive line in the Salas case, a seemingly endless and complex series of contradictory rulings that began with his successful appeal to the Spanish Court of Arbitration for Sport (TAD) against the original sanction in 2018.

The TAD argued at the time that a biological passport alone was not sufficient evidence to condemn the rider and that further investigation was needed to confirm the passport evidence.

However, WADA counterclaimed before the International Sporting Tribual (TAS) in Switzerland and the Spanish District Court in Madrid.

While the TAS ruled in favor of WADA, the Spanish Regional Court in Madrid ruled in favor of WADA last October.

The Madrid ruling stated that "the passport attacked the presumption of innocence" and that its use was not permitted by the Spanish Constitution.

As for why Salas, who retired at the end of 2018 after a career spent primarily in Burgos-BH in Pro Conti, was given a four-year sanction in the first place, the TAS ruling said Salas provided six blood samples for the bio passport between January and August 2017 provided and were tested at a WADA-accredited lab in Barcelona.

"We suspended Salas because there was something wrong with his bio-passport," Terreros told EFE.

"He was evaluated with a 99.9 percent probability of paternity, when in Spain it is 99.78 percent.

"The judge's verdict (at the district court) means that our law is no longer in line with the WADA code. It means that it is not Salas' bio-passport that is invalid, but the use of bio-passports in Spain."

If WADA does not appeal to the national court in the future, Spain will no longer be fulfilling the WADA Code, Teleros added. Penalties in that case would range from fines to non-participation in the next Olympics.

Terreros also noted that after a 40% drop in the number of anti-doping tests conducted by his agency during the pandemic-hit year, from 5,000 in 2019 to 3,000 in 2020, both standard and COVID-19 tests are now back to normal frequency levels He noted that the number of cases is now back to normal. And by 2021, he said, the number will more than double to about 7,000 cases.

The Spanish government is currently trying to push through amendments to anti-doping laws. That means, among other things, that the Spanish Sports Court (TAD), which set the legal trend in Salas' case when it exempted him from sanctions in 2018, no longer has the authority to intervene in such cases.

However, plans to submit the amended bill by January 1, 2021, appear to have been postponed at least several months due to the pandemic. Also, from a legal standpoint, it is unlikely to have retroactive effect on the Salas case.