Alberto Contador banned for 2 years - but he'll be free to race in August this year

Raleigh wrote:

Wander what A levels you need?

English?

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With respect to life bans for doping. The reason that these don't exist is because it is believed that it would be against restraint of trade law.

The best way to have life bans would be for teams not to sign dopers back in to the peloton. The UCI is trying to push teams in that direction by excluding points from team classification for the first 2 years after a rider returns from a ban.

But to be honest, apart from Sky I don't think that anyone involved in pro cycling seems to want life bans anyway. Even the so-called 'clean' teams like Garmin are hiring dopers straight back from bans. So clearly nobody has the balls to stand up to and be counted. And Movistar with Valverde seem to be making a point by sticking 2 fingers up and signing him back as the star rider even before his ban was over.

I think one reason for the team management's reluctance to condem dopers to the scrapheap is that they themselves were mostly all cheats who grew up with systemic doping in the peloton, so they don't see it as morally abhorrent.

Shows how much I know! I thought clenbuterol was the Arachnid Homeworld!

its a sad day for cycling when the best rider of the generation gets bannned...
The race results are valid to me... where as our record books for bike racing are becoming a joke full of second place winners... Jan Ullrich got a load of titles stripped from him the day after Alberto
Open your eyes, stop being in denial, Top sportsmen in most sports are doped & there is loads of info on it football & tennis imparticular
Oh yeah an Frank Schleck was involved in Operation Puerto for all you that think the Schlecks are clean, Frank admited paying Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes over ten thousand pounds for 'trainning'
http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspot.com/p/players-talk-about-doping...
http://news.softpedia.com/news/Eufemiano-Fuentes-Breaks-Off-Silence-286

'I have no sympathy for Contador and after his less than sporting behaviour half way up a mountain on the TdF in 2010 I wasn't at all surprised when drugs were found in his system. Contador is the type of man who wants to win and will do anything to win.'

LO, and quite literally, L. What is the incident of which you speak? You mean when Schleck F*cked up a gear change?
Yes, the type of man who changes gears like he's over 12 years old (sorry to any under 12s tainted by that sweeping generalisation) MUST be doping. QED and that. Jesus.

AC was clean last year... i imagine he would have been much stronger during the Tour if he had not raced the Giro. Andy might not feel great about his title, but Scarponi must really not appreciate the podium... AC was clean when he won the Giro.

The UCI are looking at Saxon Bank Pro Tour status, isn't that a sanction too far? The end result is a mess and reflects badly on cycling. Alberto Contador always looks like a man possessed in grand tours. We will never know whether this is due to his talent or the work of Doctors supervising micro doses of banned substances.? However, cannot see him confessing at anytime in the future. So glad Cadel Evans won last year!

yeah stumps agreed, shleck doesnt want this 2 year old tainted prize.
im not the greatest contador fan but i feel this should be written off and he shouldnt have been penalized.

role on august, interesting though, just read saxo bank might not have enough points to race in the big races as contador earned 67%! of their overall points and they might be wiped.

rubbish, sad day

bertie, if you want a training partner for the next 6 months i can help

The comments by Andy Schleck have not raised an eyebrow on any of the above comments.

He believes Contador is innocent and does not class himself as the winner of the tdf. He may have been coached into saying that but he has gone up in my estimation regardless.

In addition, and in all seriousness, I have to say the lot of you seem far more informed than CAS, the UCI et al. Maybe Road.CC needs to be moving beyond Fantasy Cycling, open a test lab that runs ALL the tests at the same time and the results are judged by you? : ) All bans to run from decision dates with all titles won in the meantime stripped, plus winnings, plus you have to appear in stocks in the TDF caravan to be pelted with rotten fruit for the first week
of the Tour. That'll stop the buggers!

Serves him right, no top sportsman in any sport is unaware of consequences of dabbling in drugs. Why the most talented cyclist on the planet has been so stupid beats me

I was getting 2010 and 2009 mixed up for a moment and wondering why none of you were commenting on GB's ever first podium finish for the TDF I'm sure Wiggo wouldn't have wanted it that way.

Let's all take drugs. Whoever takes the least drugs wins.

We could do some cycling while we're at it.

Quote:

Clenbuterol is such an old-school drug, no professional athlete with half a brain cell would intentionally utilise it for performance gain. It's too easy to detect on test, for one thing, and for another, there are other drugs in the group that will do the job better.

Unless of course you took it in training several months previously to build your lean muscle and, before it had completely worked through your system, you took a sample of blood for later transfusion. Personally I think that's what's happened in this case.

No athlete with any common sense takes PEDs during a race, that's not the time it works. You do it out of competition, sort yourself out beforehand and maximise your training.

IMO (and I stress, it is just my opinion), he's been doping beforehand then blood doping during the race. The Spanish have a bit of history with blood doping...

I agree with the other comments though, the Team Managers and Doctors need to be taken to task on this as well. Shouldn't have known dopers like Bjarne Riis managing a team after he pretty much admitted to winning the Tour using EPO.

I seem to remember that Finger Bang said he would consider walking away from cycling altogether. Perhap's the date at which he can race again will be moot?

Any official response from FB?

I say as I always say:

An "athlete" caught using performance enhancing drugs for the purpose of doing bettr in competitions should be banned for LIFE, and loose all professional victories.

That should sting enough to make people thing twice about ruining the sport for everybody else..

*spits*

So same old then, No clear message to kids, Aspiring Pro's, clean Pros' (yes they do exist!)and the guilty ones swayed by concious! Doping must mean a life ban. Don't forget he's not alone in this. His coaches/managers etc must have been aware yet did nothing. Cycling is a sport I've been involved with for many years and the stain of cheating has never gone away. Until the authorities accept that they may loose 1 or 2 percent of cyclists through getting caught they will bring far more into the sport. Contador's a disgrace. He's lied to every one who cares about the sport. Until doping means a life ban for everyone, which means no coaching etc doping per see will continue to be seen as 'naughty', nothing else.

It's not the amount of the Clenbuterol that really matters, but the fact that it shows (along with the plastic detected) that he must have had a blood transfusion on the eve of the rest day. A transfusion full of lovely additional red blood cells to pump up his oxygen carrying capability.

'Clenbuterol is such an old-school drug, no professional athlete with half a brain cell would intentionally utilise it for performance gain'

I don't know enough about it but WADA seem to be labouring under the misapprehension then that Clenbuterol is performance enhancing (250 positives between '08-'10, 18 of which in cycling) and cite inconsistencies with the frequency of its presence in meat generally. WADA/UCI claimed the Clenbuterol was in the plasma that was injected by AC on the rest day which itself was used to mask a red blood cell transfusion.

We'll never know for sure and I doubt very much we'll ever resolve doping in cycling, certainly if the bungling UCI remain the powers that be.

I'll probably get a wall-to-wall slagging for this, from both sides of the debate, but here goes ...

Clenbuterol is such an old-school drug, no professional athlete with half a brain cell would intentionally utilise it for performance gain. It's too easy to detect on test, for one thing, and for another, there are other drugs in the group that will do the job better.

Therefore it seems likely that a cyclist like Contador probably provided a postive test for this substance as a result of an external factor - possibly dietary (most likely) ... and if one wades through the 98 pages of the CAS decision, you'll find that they (eventually) conclude that it may well, in Contador's case, have come from a dietary supplement.

BUT - the official limit for Clenbuterol, however it gets into the athlete's sytem, is zero. Contador has never sought to deny the positive test, nor to denigrate the testing procedure.

S0 - I think that this judgement is the best fudge we are going to get, and it does close the affair, which is also needed.

We have to accept that those of the "bloody cyclists, they just dope their way to victory" school will think Contador should have been hung drawn and quartered, and equally the "don't rock the boat" mob will feel that he is to some extent hard done by ... but we have to be pragmatic here & understand that we are dealing with a professional sport, not an evening "10".

All athletes and the teams that employ them will take steps to improve or maintain their performance right up to the ragged edge of the rules ... and testing regimes will have to remain at this level of sensitivity to detect the infractions at that level - so, unsatisfactory though many people will find this verdict to be, I think as a sport and as an industry, we'll not only have to live with this one, but with others like it in the years ahead, where absolute rules have to be dealt with in the context of less-than-absolute proofs and legalistic arguement.

To those who say that Contador spun this out as long as possible - well, there is an element of that, but read the full judgement, see the rate at which the process moves, take into account the complications of working across nations, a calendar, in several languages and through a legal process & take into account how *you* would feel if you *were* innocent and your whole life was about to be turned upside-down and everything you had acheived professionally was about to be reduced to zero. I think you'd fight to the last breath, too.

This is ridiculous, really feel for Alberto, seeing has he's been in limbo for a year and a half.

Ridiculous bureacracy.

Wait till I'm in charge.

Wander what A levels you need?