Three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador is finally getting his day in court, to try to convince the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that his positive 2010 test for the banned substance clenbuterol was an innocent error. The Spanish cyclist’s career hangs on the CAS ruling.
Spain’s Alberto Contador is arguably the best bicycle racer riding today. At 28, at the peak of his powers, he has won the Tour de France three times, the Giro d'Italia twice, and the Vuelta a España once, plus the Spanish National Time Trial championship and a dozen other major races. He has beaten the best with ease, and the races he has lost recently have been lost due to accidents.
Contador seemed unstoppable, until he tested positive for the banned chemical clenbuterol after the 2010 Tour de France. The Spanish cyclist claimed that the miniscule trace of the drug must have come from contaminated meat—though the substance is banned for use on farm animals, clenbuterol is used illicitly by some farmers to increase the lean muscle mass of livestock.
For athletes, clenbuterol acts as a stimulant and allows greater aerobic capacity.
The case first went to the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC), which unsurprisingly cleared their national hero. This instigated appeals from the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI.) These agencies demanded a hearing before the CAS, the world’s highest sports sanctioning body, which agreed to review the case.
The four-day hearing before a panel of three judges will end Thursday; no decision is expected for several months. In the meantime, Contador will have no way of knowing if 2012 will be his greatest year to date, or the start of a two-year suspension from competitive cycling.
FIFA Finds Clenbuterol in Mexican Meat
A recent joint decision by soccer organization FIFA and WADA could support Contador’s case. After the FIFA Under-17 World Cup was played in Mexico in June and July, over 100 players tested positive for clenbuterol. Because more than half of the players in the tournament were affected, FIFA and WADA decided not to prosecute—it seemed clear that an environmental source was to blame.
WADA also dropped its appeals to CAS for five other Mexican football players who had tested positive during the June 2011 CONCACAF tournament; the anti-doping agency admitted that Mexican beef seemed to be widely contaminated.
Clenbuterol is also used widely by meat farmers in China, though it is officially illegal. In 2011, China’s largest meat-packing firm was caught using the substance.
These cases make Contador’s argument more plausible. However, under the existing regulations, the cyclist must prove that he ate contaminated meat, not just indicate a probability. Possibly, if his team of lawyers makes a sufficiently persuasive case, this part of the Anti-Doping Code might have to be amended.
Next: Doping a Serious Problem for CyclingDoping a Serious Problem for Cycling
Performance-enhancing drug use was a given among cyclists up until the beginning of this century, when various anti-doping agencies began cracking down. Every year famous cyclists are caught in ever more elaborate schemes to avoid being caught using drugs.
After American Floyd Landis was stripped of his 2006 Tour de France win and 2007 Tour leader Alexandre Vinikourov and the entire Astana team were ejected for using banned substances, the number of cyclists penalized each year has grown. Tests are more sensitive, and cycling organizations like UCI and ASO (which runs the Tour de France) have become more sensitive about the sport’s image.
The Operación Puerto doping case, which broke in 2006, revealed that dozens of famous cyclists had been using a Spanish laboratory for elaborate blood-doping treatments.
Riders would donate blood, which would be centrifuged to remove the oxygen-carrying red blood cells. The red cells would be re-injected before a race to increase performance and endurance. This sometimes caused blood clots, so blood thinners were required. Cycling organizations now test for these blood thinners.
Alberto Contador was cleared by the RFEC of involvement in Operación Puerto; many top riders, including Spanish National Champion Alejandro Valverde, were not. The UCIA and WADA did not appeal RFEC’s clearing of Contador.
If CAS finds Alberto Contador guilty of doping, he will be stripped of his 2010 Tour de France win, as well as his 2011 Giro d'Italia victory.
