Italian Ivan Basso, the sole cyclist to have been sanctioned in the initial stages of the Operación Puerto blood-doping affair, said the inquiry had left him "shattered."

Speaking after Thursday's reopening of the Spanish doping inquiry, Basso told El Pais newspaper that the two-year ban he received had left him marooned.

"I'm in a sort of hell at the moment: alone, abandoned by everyone and working on in silence," the 30-year-old said. "I made an error, I must pay for that and come back with my head held high."

Basso added that he would try to continue cycling professionally until he was 36 or 37.

Fired by CSC, Basso went on to sign a deal with the U.S.-based Discovery Channel team, but left the team in May 2007 after Italian authorities reopened their own investigation — despite Spanish objections — and demanded DNA samples from the 2006 Giro d’Italia winner.

In a hearing in front of an Italian Olympic Committee panel, Basso admitted that he had worked with Madrid gynecologist Eufemiano Fuentes, but only to the point of donating blood for storage, with an intent to dope. Basso denied reinjecting the donated blood, saying the Puerto investigation prevented him from carrying out his plans. Nonetheless, in June 2007 the Italian cycling federation gave Basso a two-year suspension, which will expire in October.

Dozens of other cyclists, among them Spaniards Alejandro Valverde and Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, have been linked to the controversy. Both have denied any involvement, and Contador has been formally cleared by a Spanish judge.

Operación Puerto erupted in May 2006 after a raid on Fuentes’s Madrid laboratory uncovered doping products, bags of blood and code names that appeared to link top athletes to a highly organized system of doping via blood transfusions.

But the case was closed in March 2007 because Spanish law did not punish behavior related to doping. In November 2007, a new law aimed at protecting health and combating drug use plugged this gap. And on Thursday, a source linked to the Spanish government told AFP that Madrid prosecutors claimed there could be new evidence on possible discrepancies concerning the obtaining, transport, preservation and identification of bags of blood seized during the inquiry.