CYCLING: ALBERTO CONTADOR was yesterday stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory and handed a two-year ban by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) following his positive test for clenbuterol.
It was initially announced the Spaniard had failed a doping test in September 2010, shortly after he had won his third Tour – he was also victorious in the sport’s biggest race in 2007 and 2009.
The 29-year-old always maintained his innocence, claiming he failed the test after eating contaminated meat, and rejected an offer from the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) to serve a 12-month suspension. In February 2011, RFEC decided to withdraw any sanction against Contador, a decision subsequently appealed at CAS by the International Cycling Union (UCI) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).
CAS yesterday partially upheld that appeal, ruling Contador must serve a two-year period of ineligibility starting retroactively on January 25th, 2011, minus the period of the provisional suspension served in 2010-2011 (five months and 19 days).
All results obtained since January 2011 will be excised, meaning Contador’s winning the 2011 Giro d’Italia is no longer recognised.
The 2010 Tour title will now go to Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, with Russian Denis Menchov finishing second and Spaniard Samuel Sanchez third.
Schleck admitted he was surprised. “There is no reason to be happy now,” he said. “First of all, I feel sad for Alberto. I always believed in his innocence. This is just a very sad day for cycling. The only positive news is that there is a verdict after 566 days of uncertainty. We can finally move on. I trust that the CAS judges took all things into consideration after reading a 4,000-page file.
“If now I am declared overall winner of the 2010 Tour de France, it will not make me happy. I battled with Contador in that race and I lost. My goal is to win the Tour de France in a sportive way, being the best of all competitors, not in court. If I succeed this year, I will consider it as my first Tour victory.”
In explaining the reasons behind their judgment, a CAS statement read: “Alberto Contador alleged that the presence of clenbuterol in his system originated from eating contaminated meat.
“The UCI and WADA submitted that it was more likely that the adverse analytical finding of the athlete was caused by a blood transfusion or by the ingestion of a contaminated food supplement than by the consumption of contaminated meat . . .
“The panel concluded that both the meat contamination scenario and the blood transfusion scenario were, in theory, possible explanations for the adverse analytical findings but were, however, equally unlikely.
“In the panel’s opinion, on the basis of the evidence adduced, the presence of clenbuterol was more likely caused by the ingestion of a contaminated food supplement.”
Contador will now miss the 2012 Tour and London Olympics.
A statement from the UCI read: “In rejecting the defence argument, in particular that the presence of clenbuterol in Alberto Contador’s urine sample came from the consumption of contaminated meat, today’s ruling confirms the UCI’s position.”
UCI president Pat McQuaid added: “This is a sad day for our sport. Some may think of it as a victory, but that is not at all the case.”
“There are no winners when it comes to the issue of doping; every case, irrespective of its characteristics, is always a case too many.”
