The British tennis player Andy Murray has criticised Spanish officials for their handling of the Operation Puerto trial, asking if they could be guilty of the biggest cover-up in sports history.
The Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, the central figure in the trial, was given a one-year prison term for supplying blood transfusions to cyclists.
Anti-doping authorities want to analyse the bags to see whether they implicate athletes in sports other than cycling, but those hopes could be dashed by the court's decision to destroy evidence.
On social media site Twitter Murray said the case is beyond a joke.
The Spanish anti-doping agency intends appealing the decision to destroy 211 bags of frozen blood and plasma found when police raided Fuentes' offices in 2006.