'Doped' Contador blames bad meat
Source: Agencies |
October 1, 2010, Friday
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THREE-TIME Tour de France champion Alberto Contador blamed contaminated meat yesterday for his positive doping test during this year's race, the latest blow to a sport battered by drug scandals.
The Spanish rider has been provisionally suspended after a World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Germany found a "very small concentration" of the banned substance clenbuterol in his urine sample on July 21 at the Tour, according to a statement from the International Cycling Union.
"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told media in his hometown of Pinto near Madrid.
Contador, who is leaving Astana to join Bjarne Riis's Saxo Bank team next season, said the meat was brought across the border from Spain to France during a rest day of the Tour at the request of the team's cook.
Contador said the meat was brought by a Spanish cycling organizer, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron. Cerron said earlier on Spanish radio that he was a friend of the team chef, who had complained of poor quality meat at the hotel where the team was staying.
Contador said he ate the meat on July 20 and again on July 21. He called the UCI's suspension "a true mistake."
The Spaniard said he learned of the positive test on August 24 and met with UCI doctors two days later.
"On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened. The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination," Contador said.
He said he has been in conversations with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyze it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim."
The UCI said the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was "400 time(s) less than what the anti-doping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect."
Both Contador's A and B samples tested positive and the cyclist has been "formally and provisionally suspended," the UCI said.
With seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong now back in retirement, Contador is cycling's biggest star, so it could be devastating for the sport if the Spanish rider is proved to have cheated.
The UCI's statement gave no indication of whether he will be stripped of his latest Tour title or be banned.
Scientific support
"The UCI continues working with the scientific support of WADA to analyze all the elements that are relevant to the case. This further investigation may take some more time," the statement said.
Having invested millions of dollars in recent years in what is widely regarded as the one of the most stringent anti-doping regimes anywhere, cycling authorities hoped to be turning the corner on widespread doping by riders that had long made a mockery of the sport and repeatedly sullied the Tour, its showpiece race. Although just 27, Contador is already the greatest rider of his generation. His victories at the Tour starting in 2007 and at other major races were seen as a possible break from cycling's dirty past.
"This is serious and this case needs to be clarified," Pierre Bordry, the outgoing head of France's anti-doping agency, told RTL radio. "Clenbuterol is a forbidden substance, whatever the amount which is detected. If they really found it, it's forbidden."
Contador beat Andy Schleck of Luxembourg by 39 seconds in winning his third Tour in four years.
If Tour officials strip Contador of his title, he would be just the second cyclist so punished. The first was American Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title after a positive test. For years, Landis denied doping but admitted this spring that he used performance-enhancing drugs. In doing so, he accused Armstrong and others of systematic drug use.
The Spanish rider has been provisionally suspended after a World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Germany found a "very small concentration" of the banned substance clenbuterol in his urine sample on July 21 at the Tour, according to a statement from the International Cycling Union.
"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told media in his hometown of Pinto near Madrid.
Contador, who is leaving Astana to join Bjarne Riis's Saxo Bank team next season, said the meat was brought across the border from Spain to France during a rest day of the Tour at the request of the team's cook.
Contador said the meat was brought by a Spanish cycling organizer, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron. Cerron said earlier on Spanish radio that he was a friend of the team chef, who had complained of poor quality meat at the hotel where the team was staying.
Contador said he ate the meat on July 20 and again on July 21. He called the UCI's suspension "a true mistake."
The Spaniard said he learned of the positive test on August 24 and met with UCI doctors two days later.
"On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened. The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination," Contador said.
He said he has been in conversations with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyze it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim."
The UCI said the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was "400 time(s) less than what the anti-doping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect."
Both Contador's A and B samples tested positive and the cyclist has been "formally and provisionally suspended," the UCI said.
With seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong now back in retirement, Contador is cycling's biggest star, so it could be devastating for the sport if the Spanish rider is proved to have cheated.
The UCI's statement gave no indication of whether he will be stripped of his latest Tour title or be banned.
Scientific support
"The UCI continues working with the scientific support of WADA to analyze all the elements that are relevant to the case. This further investigation may take some more time," the statement said.
Having invested millions of dollars in recent years in what is widely regarded as the one of the most stringent anti-doping regimes anywhere, cycling authorities hoped to be turning the corner on widespread doping by riders that had long made a mockery of the sport and repeatedly sullied the Tour, its showpiece race. Although just 27, Contador is already the greatest rider of his generation. His victories at the Tour starting in 2007 and at other major races were seen as a possible break from cycling's dirty past.
"This is serious and this case needs to be clarified," Pierre Bordry, the outgoing head of France's anti-doping agency, told RTL radio. "Clenbuterol is a forbidden substance, whatever the amount which is detected. If they really found it, it's forbidden."
Contador beat Andy Schleck of Luxembourg by 39 seconds in winning his third Tour in four years.
If Tour officials strip Contador of his title, he would be just the second cyclist so punished. The first was American Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title after a positive test. For years, Landis denied doping but admitted this spring that he used performance-enhancing drugs. In doing so, he accused Armstrong and others of systematic drug use.
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