THE contents of one's freezer often require the most thorough of investigations. In my case, these currently include two partially exploded beer bottles, some vintage fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas which is most frequently used for icing my aching hamstrings after football.

Some refridgeration units, however, contain even more suspicious substances than that - not least the one at the Institut Hospital del Mar d’Investigacions Mèdique in Barcelona’s Biomedical Research Park. As a result of a ruling yesterday by Madrid’s Provincial Court, 211 bags of blood and plasma which have been stored there ever since being confiscated as part of the Spanish authorities' Operación Puerto anti-doping probe in 2006 can now be released to interested parties such as the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) for analysis.

The blood bags were the unwanted property of former cycling doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, a charming character who is also known as “Dr Blood” by one of his former clients, the former cycling doper Tyler Hamilton. They were found, along with with client lists and sundry other paraphernalia, during a raid of his offices by Spain's Guardia Civil.

Their release is long overdue and at least partially past its sell-by date. Lord knows the wheels of justice turn slowly but this decision arrived some three weeks after the ten-year WADA statute of limitations for such matters expired last month.

Yet, as unfortunate as that piece of timing is, today's developments are a further step towards transparency in sport, some three years after Judge Julia Patricia Santamaria's order to destroy the blood bags - handing down a one-year suspended sentence to Fuentes for endangering public health at the same time - led to accusations of a cover up. "operation puerto case is beyond a joke," tweeted Andy Murray at the time. "biggest cover-up in sports history? why would court order blood bags to be destroyed? #coverup"

What was the biggest cover-up in sporting history three years ago suddenly seems like a second tier scandal. The IAAF, an organisation desperately struggling to regain the moral high ground after the scandal which engulfed the Diack family, meets on Friday to consider whether to reinstate Russian athletes into the Olympics, while Maria Sharapova yesterday submitted her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have her two-year ban for using Meldonium reduced. While Puerto may have been forgotten in the minds of the public, it was a ticking timebomb which may yet explode in a few high profile faces. How much all of this directly impacted upon Murray's sport, if not his career itself, is just one intangible which we may soon be able to answer.

Cycling, of course, remains the epicentre of this scandal. Fuentes built up a sophisticated network of handlers and doctors, including the former head of the haematology department at one of Madrid’s biggest hospitals, only for Spanish journeyman cycling pro Jesu?s Manzano, who blamed blood transfusion for his collapse on the stage to Morzine during the 2003 tour, to turn whistleblower. His testimony led to wiretaps which implicated 56 riders in total, even if only six served any kind of ban. Fuentes was amongst those arrested, as was Manolo Saiz, the directeur sportif of the Liberty Seguros–Würth team. Nine riders from four teams were ejected before the 2006 Tour de France, including pre-race favourites Alejandro Valverde, Ivan Basso, Jan Ullrich, Michele Scarponi and Jörg Jacksche. The race ended with a damaging positive test for supposed winner Floyd Landis.

Revelations of doping in cycling ten years ago are all very well, but it is Fuentes' bold claims that he also worked with athletes from other sports, including football, tennis, athletics, basketball and boxing, which is the real area of continuing fascination here.

Back in 2009, French newspaper Le Monde was forced to pay damages after claiming Real Madrid, Barcelona and other leading clubs in Spain had used Fuentes' doping expertise. But the disgraced doctor certainly claims to have inside knowledge in this area. A statement issued via his lawyers in 2013 which indicated a list of subjects on which - for a price - he was now prepared to talk publicly about included "How I prepared a team to play in the Champions League'.

Perhaps the identity of this team will become clear in the next days and months, along with the identity of some other big hitters in world sport, but it would still seem wise to temper expectations of earth-shattering revelations which will shake sport to its core. The instruction indeed comes directly from Enrique Gomez Bastida, the detective who has spent a decade or more hoping for such an outcome. "The bags might reveal a whole load more names, different nationalities, which could get very messy," he said. "But some of the bags are anonymous and we will never know to whom they belong."

Cynicism over the conclusions of Operacion Puerto is perhaps only natural when doping violations continue to come along as regularly as hot dinners. But for those clean athletes who may have missed out as a result, let us hope revenge may yet be a dish which is best served cold.