Gil Pérez occupied the role as Spain's top national coach from 1979-88. During his tenure, Spain won its first Olympic medal in athletics when Jorge Llopart took silver in the 50km walk at Moscow 1980. Jose Manuel Abascal made it two by collecting bronze in the Los Angeles 1984 1500m. A respected journalist, writer and historian, he also earned degrees in law and physical education. The Carlos Gil Pérez Memorial meet has been held in Salamanca for 25 years.

However, the claims made in El País have wrecked his reputation as one of Spain's most revered trainers. One athlete, a 57-year-old former discus thrower going by the initials F.J.B.J. in order to protect his identity, detailed abuse going back four decades to when he was 17.

In the story published on Tuesday, F.J.B.J. revealed invitations to Gil Pérez's apartment in Salamanca, where he exposed minors to porn videos and watched them masturbate, and his requests for oral sex and masturbation himself. The former athlete said there were regular group house gatherings and that the youngsters did not know that anything untoward was happening. As word spread among them, they took precautionary measures and cautioned each other over entering his home alone.

F. J. B. J. decided to end his long silence when he came across a commemorative plaque, unveiled in 2013, outside Gil Pérez's home. It reads, "Here lived Carlos Gil Pérez (1931-2009). Trainer of trainers. Promoter of sport and Olympism in Salamanca. His motto: Citius, altius, fortius [Faster, higher, stronger]. Baron de Coubertin, Athens Olympic Games, 1896."

"That tribute hurts me. I don't want to find an arena with his name on it or a plaque in his street, because it’s the name of a paedophile who abused me," he told El País. "It disgusts me every time I pass by. That is why I needed to speak up." F. J. B. J. has signed a written legal statement detailing the abuse.

The newspaper also quotes another 58-year-old anonymous source stating that Gil Pérez "put his hand on my crotch and I wasn’t the only one. He always tried it with a few of us. We never told anyone. We were ashamed".

El País adds two additional testimonies confirming that they watched porn films at the coach’s apartment. It also quotes Olympic athlete and current RFEA official Antonio Sanchez, who said he was “stunned” by the revelations. "Carlos was my friend, my father. This is the first time I have heard of this," Sanchez said.

Although F. J. B. J. was not coached by Gil Pérez, he frequently visited the trainer due to his mentorship of one of his close friends. He said, "It was normal for four or five friends to go up to his house on a Friday afternoon and listen to music, because he had the latest technology. We would have a drink or look at sports equipment and, on occasion, watch porn in the living room.

"He didn't seem to mind as long as there weren't too many of us. On one occasion, we were a group of friends watching a porn film and masturbating, just laughing among ourselves. Carlos came into the room and said, 'The first one to cum gets 200 pesetas (former Spanish currency).

"He kept looking at us, and his hand strayed without forcing anyone, but it was something that was not consensual. ‘Look how he's got it,' he'd say. We were all minors. Our hormones were raging, and for us it was just goofing off. But as I got older I realised that what he was doing wasn't normal."

F. J. B. J. also detailed that he was once cornered by Gil Pérez, who tried to force the minor to masturbate his penis. He said he left before the coach orgasmed and never came back. "After that, he didn’t address me again when we saw each other on the training ground. I left athletics soon after,” he revealed.

Gil Pérez was born in the northern Galician town of Santiago de Compostela but moved to Salamanca where he coached the city's first national champions. In his illustrious career, he received the Royal Order of Sporting Merit from former IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch in 1968 before being awarded it for a second time in 2007 by King Juan Carlos I.

The report is part of an initiative by El País to uncover abuse within Spanish sports which, the newspaper states, has registered more than a thousand victims during the past decades.