Contador may not have won the 2010 Tour de France fair and square after a failed substance test throughout the race was revealed Wednesday. He held a press conference Thurs to formally deny that he has ever used performance enhancing substances. Facing a two-year ban from cycling and being stripped of his Tour title, Contador held responsible ingesting tainted animal meat.
Contador believes the meat was the problem
July 21 was a terrible day for world’s greatest cyclist Alberto Contador as he tested positive, right before the Tour de France started on the mountain stage. The New York Times reports that a statement released Wednesday by the International Cycling Union said 2 urine samples taken from Contador that day tested positive for traces of clenbuterol, a weight-loss and muscle-building substance. In a news conference Thursday, Contador called himself a victim and said he had eaten meat tainted with the drug at his hotel. He also said the tiny amount of clenbuterol found in his samples would not have enhanced his performance anyway.
Previous Contador did drugs
Contador won’t stand for being known this way. He needs to get his name cleared. CNN reports that he was provisionally suspended from racing by the International Cycling Union. In a sport plagued by doping, Contador’s career involves being connected with a Spanish blood-doping ring in 2006. He won the Tour de France in 2007. This was the first time he was able to do so. He joined a team banned from races because of drugging violations. This was in 2008, and the team was Astana. He then won another Tour title. This was in 2009. Lance Armstrong, a seven-time winner, finished third. There is only one person ever to have lost their title due to testing positive within the Tour de France. This was Floyd Landis who was an American.
Contador easily persuades several people
Several experts assume Contador is telling the truth. He very well could have only tested positive because somebody tainted his meat. We learn from Universal Sports that clenbuterol is given to animals sometimes. To speed up growth, chicken, cows and pigs are given the drug. The liver and muscle is where the drug ends up staying. Clenbuterol is used by bodybuilders to increase muscle mass and burn fat. The drug also increases aerobic capacity by making more oxygen accessible to muscles. Its short term effects are similar to amphetamines. But Dr. Andrew Franklyn-Miller, a sports medicine expert, told Universal that it would have been impossible for Contador to get a boost from ingesting clenbuterol-spiked meat.
Articles cited
New York Times
nytimes.com/2010/10/01/sports/cycling/01cycling.html?ref=sports
CNN
cnn.com/2010/SPORT/09/30/cycling.alberto.contador.banned/index.html?npt=NP1
Universal Sports
universalsports.com/news/article/newsid=494315.html
