Cycling Evening News 28.04.12

Festival Luxembourgeois Elsy Jacobs - Tour de Romandie - Romandie judges rule against Meersman complaint - Tour of Turkey (video) - Gracia Orlova - Schleck to lead team at Giro? - CAS decision on British lifetime Olympic ban next week - Merckx disagrees with de Vlaeminck on Paris-Roubaix - Other News - Tweets - Cyclists mobilised on London streets - Berkeley hit-and-run suspect arrested - Newswire

Racing
Festival Luxembourgeois Elsy Jacobs 

Fourth road race victory for Vos this season

Stage 1 followed the famous 102.6km hilly parcours of the GP Elsy Jacobs (map), the one-day race named in honour of the world's first Women's Road Race World Champion and from which this festival grew. It headed north out of Garnich, Jacobs' hometown, then followed a 53.6km loop up to Mersch and back to Garnich again where riders completed five laps of a 9.8km circuit. Those in the know say that it's always impossible to predict how this race will end, and more than once the fates have conspired to allow a relative unknown to take the glory.

Linda Villumsen (GreenEDGE) split the bunch by escaping with Elisa Longo Borghini (Hitec Products-Mistral Home) and Amber Neben (Specialized-Lululemon), then Ashleigh Moolman (Lotto-Belisol) and Tiffany Cromwell (GreenEDGE) tried to bridge the gap with Vos and a few others giving chase and forming a lead group as the race entered the second-to-last lap. Last year, the Dutch superstar stormed the course to wrest victory from Emma Pooley and Judith Arndt, but since the illness that forced her to stay away from the Ronde van Vlaanderen her form has perhaps not been quite as good as it was at this time in 2011. However, even if she ran at 50% Marianne would remain a force more than capable of dominating a race - she was many people's favourite today and she's never been a rider to let her fans down, crossing the finish line at the front of an eleven-strong bunch and taking over the General Classification lead as she did so.

"Not much happened on the main parcours not much happened, but on the Garnish circuit we faced a lot of attacks," Vos explained after the race. "Our rivals aren't going to make us a gift of this race, so I'm afraid we have a lot of work to do tomorrow."

Top Ten
  1.  Marianne Vos Rabobank 2h42'49"
  2.  Adrie Visser Skil-Argos ST
  3.  Pauline Ferrand Prevot Rabobank ST
  4.  Megan Guarnier Team TIBCO ST
  5.  Linda Villumsen GreenEDGE ST
  6.  Emma Johansson Hitec Products-Mistral Home ST
  7.  Noemi Cantele Be Pink ST
  8.  Tiffany Cromwell GreenEDGE ST
  9.  Ashleigh Moolman Lotto Belisol ST
  10.  Joanna Van De Winkel Lotto Belisol ST
(Full results and GC)

Stage 3 begins with another lap of today's main route, but omits the five laps of Garnich in favour of five laps around Mamur - the village where Luxembourg's other most famous cyclist Nicolas Frantz was born, and where Vos again dominated last year. (More on the race) (Rabobank stage report)

Tour de Romandie
Penultimate Stage 4 (map, profile) covered 184km between Bulle  and Sion - the latter being one of the most important ancient sites in Europe, inhabited for around 8,200 years; its Valère Basilica fortified church and the Château de Tourbillon that faces the church on the opposite side of the valley making this the most spectacular stage town of the race by some way. The parcours took the riders over the highest mountains in this edition: the three Cat 1 climbs Col des Mosses (1,452m), Veysonnaz (1,473m) and St-Martin (1,423m), with Cat 2 Basse-Nendaz (1,018m) thrown in for good measure at the end of a 65.5km flat section in the middle of the stage - a section that offered the roleurs, sprinters and chancers a fine opportunity to grab a big lead and prevent the climbing specialists having everything their own way.

Luis León Sánchez

All eyes were on Sky today, and as expected Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas left the race once the stage was over to begin preparations for the Giro d'Italia. For birthday boy Bradley Wiggins, whose General Classification lead began to look precarious yesterday when it was reduced to one second, a very great deal depended on this stage. Get things right and he'd be the last man to go in tomorrow's time trial, possibly even extend his advantage. Get it wrong and his chances of overall victory rest entirely on riding the time trial of his life on Sunday.

Things looked as though they might go his way as he was expertly paced up the final climb by Richie Porte and the peloton wore down a five-man break consisting of Roman Kreuziger (Astana), Mikel Landa (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Jesus Hernandez (SaxoBank), John Gadret and Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R-La Mondiale), but it was not to be as Luis León Sánchez rode cleverly on the last descent to get himself into a good position for the final sprint, taking the yellow jersey and a nine second lead. Looks like Bradley had better forget about the birthday beers tonight, because he's going to need to have his wits about him tomorrow.

Top Ten
  1.  Luis Leon Sanchez Gil Rabobank 4h56'13" 
  2.  Rinaldo Nocentini AG2R-La Mondiale  ST
  3.  Branislau Samoilau Movistar  ST
  4.  Gorka Verdugo Marcotegui Euskaltel-Euskadi   ST
  5.  Paolo Tiralongo Astana  ST
  6.  Pierre Rolland Europcar  ST
  7.  Andreas Klöden RadioShack-Nissan  ST
  8.  Cadel Evans BMC  ST
  9.  Roman Kreuziger Astana  ST
  10.  Fabrice Jeandesboz Saur-Sojasun  ST
Kenny Dehaes (Lotto-Belisol), Gianni Meersman (Lotto-Belisol,), Jonathan Hivert (Saur-Sojasun), Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Matthew Brammeier (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Kristof Vandewalle (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Mark Cavendish (Sky), Geraint Thomas (Sky), Tejay Van Garderen (BMC), Joan Horrach Rippoll (Katusha),  Allan Davis (GreenEDGE), Daryl Impey (GreenEDGE), Sergio Miguel Moreira Paulinho (SaxoBank) and David Tanner (SaxoBank) did not finish. (Full results and GC)

Tejay van Garderen (BMC) was forced to withdraw after strong winds blew a tree branch into his path where it hit him in the mouth. The team reported that he had suffered facial injuries, but it appears he wasn't seriously hurt. Gianni Meersman is reported to have abandoned. One of the official motorbikes crashed on a bend with 16km to go; fortunately no riders collided with it.

Stage 5 (map, profile) is a hilly 16.2km individual time trial beginning at 1.327m Montana village with a gentle rise to 1,302m in the first kilometre, then a 3km descent to the lowest point at 1,102m. Riders then face a Category 1 climb to Aminona, altitude 1,512m - very much the crux of the race, because a rider who can climb it fast and not expened too much energy in doing so will have an obvious advantage going into the final, flat 7.2km to the finish line at the Crans-Montana ski resort. With winds as high as 57kph expected, anything could happen.

Romandie judges rule in favour of Sanchez
Judges have declared that Luis Leon Sanchez did not deviate from his line in order to force Gianni Meersman into the barriers at the end of the Tour de Romandie's Stage 3. Meersman's Lotto-Belisol team launched an official complaint against the Rabobank rider after viewing video footage of the stage, which took place in Friday.


Tour of Turkey
This race too is drawing to its end, today's Stage 7 (map) being the penultimate. It began at Kusadasi before following the craggy coastline for 74km to Seferihisar, where it turned north and inland acros İzmir Province; arriving 21km later at the north-facing coastline by Güzelbahçe. After turning to the east, there were 28.6km remaining before arrival at the finish line in İzmir. One of the oldest cities in the Mediterranean region,  İzmir  remains better known in the West by its ancient name Smyrna, birthplace (possibly) of Homer; though many of the ancient buildings were destroyed in an enormous fire that killed as many as 2,000 people (it wasn't all bad, however - it brought an end to the Greco-Turkish War, which some estimates claim killed as many as 100,000).

Iljo Keisse

Iljo Keisse (Omega Pharma-QuickStep) looked to be the most likely stage winner when he entered the final 2km with a 14" advantage, having mounted a solo attack from a six-man breakaway at 6km after his attempts to increase their speed met with a lack of enthusiasm. Then - apparent disaster as his rear tyre lost traction and he crashed with less than a kilometre to go. The pack bore down upon him, but he was up in a flash, got his chain back on and pedaled hard towards the line. Somehow, he got up to speed and, thought they were snapping at his heels throughout the last 50m to the line, he held them off to take the stage for what just seconds later Twitterers were calling the most dramatic victory of the race.

Ivaïlo Gabrovski (Konya Torku Sekersport) remains General Classification leader

Top Ten
  1.  Iljo Keisse Omega Pharma-QuickStep 2h52'38"
  2.  Marcel Kittel Argos-Shimano ST
  3.  Alessandro Petacchi Lampre-ISD ST
  4.  Andrea Guardini Farnese Vini-Selle Italia ST
  5.  Mark Renshaw Rabobank ST
  6.  Robert Förster United Healthcare Presented By Maxxis ST
  7.  Jean-Pierre Drucker Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda's ST
  8.  Daniele Colli Team Type 1-Sanofi ST
  9.  Alexey Tsatevitch Katusha ST
  10.  Juan Jose Haedo SaxoBank ST
Cameron Meyer (GreenEDGE), Luke Roberts (SaxoBank) and Geoffroy Lequatre (Bretagne Schuller) did not start the stage. (Full results and GC)

On Sunday, Stage 8 (map) takes place on an urban parcours situated entirely in Istanbul. Starting out from Sultanahmet Square; fittingly the site of the Hippodrome of Constantinople and once the Byzantine Empire's version of Elis' Olympia or the Pythian Games at Delphi. It then passes out of the neutral zone on Kennedy Street, crosses the Galata Bridge and heads north-west along the shores of the Bosphoros, dipping briefly inland to get onto the Bosphorous Bridge which, at the time construction was completed in 1973, was the longest suspension bridge anywhere in the world other than the USA. When the riders reach the south-eastern bank, they have officially left Europe and are in Asia. When riders reach the Cadde Bostan Coastal Road, they will begin the first of eight laps of a 12.2km circuit.

Gracia Orlova
Stage 3 (map) began at Lichnov before heading south into the mountains where, after 30km, the riders face a climb to 1,000m - the highest point in the race. A fast descent led for 10km to the foot of an 800m climb lying just over 50km into the stage, then a third climb to 900m begans at around 70km. One last climb at 105km reached around 575m and, especially in the final part, looked horrendously steep; a real leg-breaker as the riders approached the last of the 122.4km on their way back to where they started.

Trixi Worrack

Specialized-Lululemon seem to have decided that the best way ahead is to win every stage in this race; today being the turn of Trixi Worrack.

Evelyn Stevens leads the General Classification with an advantage of 1'13".

Top Ten
  1.  Trixi Worrack Specialized-Lululemon 03h02'14"
  2.  Alena Amialyusik Be Pink +6"
  3.  Evelyn Stevens Specialized-Lululemon ST
  4.  Sharon Laws AA Drink-Leontien.nl +1'53"
  5.  Tatiana Antoshina Rabobank +2'13"
  6.  Olena Sharpa +4'08"
  7.  Olena Pavlukhina +5'19"
  8.  Paulina Bentkowska-Brzezna +6'14"
  9.  Andrea Graus Vienne Futuroscope ST
  10.  Ellen van Dijk Specialized-Lululemon ST
(Full results and GC)

Sunday brings Stage 4 (map), the last of this year's race - and it's an tough-looking 100.2km parcours consisting of six laps of a 16.7km circuit including an 11% 50m climb in the last half of each.

Schleck "should lead his team in the Giro d'Italia"
Frank Schleck is the most likely candidate to replace Jakob Fuglsang at the Giro d'Italia, says the French language, Luxembourg-based L'Essentiel website following yesterday's announcement that the 27-year-old Danish rider would be unable to take part due to inflammation of the articular capsule and ligament in his left knee. Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport also believes Schleck will take his place, but at present nothing has been confirmed nor denied by RadioShack-Nissan - though several sources are reporting it as fact. Twitter reveals that many fans think Linus Gerdemann is a more likely choice.

CAS decision on BOA lifetime ban policy this week
The Court for Arbitration in Sport will publish its decision on whether British athletes to have been subject to a doping-related suspension in the past will be permitted to compete in the Olympics on the 30th of April. The case began with an appeal to the CAS made by the British Olympic Association after the World Anti-Doping Agency had ruled that the lifetime ban policy violates existing rules.

Central to the case, though not directly involved due to his own decision to stay out of it, is David Millar - the cyclist who served a two-year suspension for EPO before returning to cycling as one of doping's more intelligent and outspoken opponents. Dave Brailsford, British Cycling's performance director, has said that if the appeal is unsuccessful (as is widely considered likely) he will invite Millar to join the Olympic team. Millar, however, is reluctant; saying that he does not wish to be seen as a black sheep but hopes the Court will favour WADA so that he can compete at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.

Merckx won Paris-Roubaix in 1968, 1970
and 1973

Merckx on Paris-Roubaix and Philippe Gilbert
Roger de Vlaeminck might not have been very impressed with this year's Paris-Roubaix - "there wasn't much excitement," he said rather sniffily, going on to say he hoped Fabian Cancellara would be around to provide Tom Boonen with some competition in 2013 - but the race has received Eddy Merckx's seal of approval.

"I was enjoying it from my armchair," says the winner of 525 professional victories. "And I know what I'm talking about - in the 1969 Tour of Flanders and the 1970 Paris-Roubaix I undertook such raids. I rode into the the Velodrome with a lead of five or six minutes on de Vlaeminck and the rest of the peloton. Tom is extremely important for the Belgian cycling. I've been saying since January that he'd win." Many people are wondering if Philippe Gilbert's amazing 2011 season was a fluke, but Merckx he'll return to form - "Only he knows why he's not riding as expected. I refuse to write him off." (More from Het Nieuwesblad)

Other News
British star Ruth Winder (Vanderkitten-Focus) has had to abandon the Festival Luxembourgeois Elsy Jacobs as she's still suffering headaches after her crash at Borsele last week.

Europcar took a third stage victory at the La Tropicale Amissa Bongo when Yohann Gène won Stage 5 this morning. Gène also won the first stage with Thomas Voeckler taking Stage 3.

"British Cycling’s Olympic Mountain Bike Coach Phil Dixon has hailed Annie Last’s first ever World Cup win in the new UCI Cross Country Eliminator World Cup as an essential factor in qualifying for the Olympic Games – and a trend that will continue" (British Cycling)

Tweets
Look out, racing world - there's a new Voigt about to make his mark...

Jens Voigt ‏ @thejensieAnd tomorrow first race of my son with a real license!! And i amfraid i am more nervous than my son- hahahaha

Russell Hampton ‏ @RussellHamptonKeisse big respect today #coolasacucumber

Cycling
Cyclists mobilised on London streets
The London Big Ride - a mass participation event that seeks to put cyclist safety issues at the top of the capital's mayoral candidates agendas, attracted more then 5,000 riders despite torrential rain.


"The Big Ride is our best chance to show the next mayor we're serious about redesigning our streets to make them safer for everyone," says Ashok Sinha of the London Cycling Campaign, which organised the event. "Some of the mayoral manifestos show very weak commitments to cycling, so every person who comes to the Big Ride can help push safer cycling up the next mayoral agenda."



Man arrested after Berkeley hit-and-run
Police in Berkeley, California, have arrested a man wanted in connection with a hit-and-run incident in which two cyclists were "side-swiped" on Wednesday. Neither cyclist was seriously injured, but their clothing and bikes were damaged.

The car was reported as stolen on the same day, but it is not yet clear if the report was made before or after the accident - it's not unknown for drivers who have been in an accident to abandon their vehicle then claim it's been stolen in an attempt to escape charges and that he has subsequently been charged with "felony hit-and-run" suggests police believe this may have been the case. When arrested, he was found to be in possession of heroin and illegal ammunition, as well as being in breach of the terms of a probation order.

A video of the accident, caught on a helmet-mounted camera, has received more than 103,000 views on Youtube.


Newswire
Britain
Cycling campaigners in Swansea are winning widespread support for their manifesto from across the political divide" (This Is South Wales)

Worldwide
"National Women’s Cycling Championship from May 1" (Daily Times, Pakistan)

"I touched a nerve with my most recent column debating the issue of whether cyclists need to show more respect on the road" (Marin Independent Journal, USA)

"His wife Hasmah Ibrahim is ailing but former national cyclist Shaharudin Jaffar still finds time to get involved in organising cycling related events" (Star Online, Malaysia)

"Cycling races demand that competitors have a team spirit. The windbreak that lead riders give the group and opportunities to sprint ahead of the pack follow a code of fairness. To underline the importance of good sportsmanship in cycling, the Spy Optics Belgian Waffle Ride held in April gave a “Wawful Freddy” distinction to the three cyclists who demonstrated the worst in sportsmanship" (The Coast News, USA)

"Cycling may be new product to draw tourists" (Bernama, Malaysia)

Contador: guilty or not, justice has not been done

Following the detection of banned drug Clenbuterol in a sample he provided on the 21st of July in 2010, a rest day during the Tour de France, Alberto Contador was handed a (backdated) two-year suspension and all his results during that period - including a Tour de France and a Giro d'Italia, cycling's most prestigious races - will be disqualified.

The world of cycling has been split for nearly two years into those who believe the Spanish rider is innocent of deliberate doping and those who believe he is guilty - yet even the second group are shocked at the apparent severity of this punishment. Many cyclists, some retired and some still active, have leaped to his defence; saying that the penalty is too great and claiming that others, some of them riders whose guilt is in no doubt, have been let off more lightly. So has he been treated unfairly? Should he appeal and, if he does, should his sentence be reduced?

To decide, we first need to know exactly what it is he has been found guilty of doing: what was found in the positive sample, how it was found and how it may have got there. Then it becomes possible to compare his case to those of riders who have been in similar situations and thus decide if his punishment is fair or if he has been singled out for special treatment.

Clenbuterol
Clenbuterol is the generic clinical name for (RS)-1-(4-amino-3,5-dichlorophenyl)-2-(tert-butylamino)ethanol, a sympathomimetic drug - i.e., one that mimics the actions of transmitter chemicals (in this case, epinephrine) within the nervous system. It's used in medicine as a decongestant and bronchodilator, sharing many similarities to Salbutamol but is more potent and its effects last longer; hence its use in some nations to treat chronic asthma.

As is the case with almost all drugs, Clenbuterol can produce a number of undesirable and even dangerous side-effects. These may include, but are not limited to, the following: thyrotoxicosis (over-production of thyroxine and triiodothyronine in the thyroid gland, stenosis (narrowing of the blood vessels), heart attacks, tachycardia (abnormally high heart rate), hypertension (high blood pressure) and hypersensitivity. It also increases aerobic capacity, raising the blood's ability to carry oxygen to the muscles; this being the effect that athletes who illegally use it to improve their performance seek.

Clenbuterol is sometimes used - against medical advice - as a dietary aid as it increases the body's muscle to fat ratio. Currently, vets use a trademarked version named Ventipulmin to relieve respiratory difficulties in horses, but for the same reasons it appeals to dieters it is used by farmers wishing to produce higher-value, leaner meat. In the USA and European Union, where it can be used legally by vets to relax the uterus of birthing cattle (in the USA, provided meat from the animal will not enter the human food chain), it's believed with evidence that illegal use by farmers is extremely rare - a test conducted by the EU in 2008 and 2009 could find only one example of meat contaminated by Clenbuterol among 83,203 samples; but in some nations such as China and Mexico, it's thought to be comparatively common.

How was Contador tested?
All professional cyclists can expect to receive random visits from WADA-approved anti-doping officials throughout the year. They can appear at any time and refusal to provide a sample is considered indication of guilt, as is failure to keep their national federation up to date with their whereabouts. In addition to this, teams now operate their own internal anti-doping test programs which have been opened up to independent inspection in recent years to allay accusations that they are merely paying lip service to the problem - riders who have tried to escape team tests have been sacked in the past. All riders taking part in the Tour de France will be subjected to a test before Stage 1, as will the winner, second place and two riders at random following each stage. Since the Tour lasts for 21 days, this means that all riders are likely to be tested at least twice during the race. Contador won no stages in 2010, but was second on Stages 12 and 17 - and would hence have been tested at least four times: before Stage 1, after Stages 12 and 17 and on the rest day when he provided the sample that tested positive. As race leader in the final six stages, he may have been tested more.

The drug can be detected in a sample of urine via a process termed GC-MS, gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, and is considered sufficiently reliable to have become the standard laboratory test when an unknown substance needs to be accurately identified. In gas chromatography, the sample is carried within an non-reactive or inert gas, commonly nitrogen or helium, which allows it to be fed through a tube coated with compounds termed stationary phases. The varying retention times of each stationary phase (the time taken for the compound to "take hold" of molecules from the sample) permits the sample to be "picked apart" into separate molecules, each representative of one of the chemicals within the sample.

The GC-MS process has been made far easier by improvements in the machines
used to carry out the procedure
(image credit: Polimerek CC BY-SA 3.0)

Those chemicals can then be identified using the mass spectrometry process. The molecules from the sample are converted into ions using an ion source (usually by hitting them with an electron beam) and then sorted according to their mass-to-charge ratio using an electromagnet. This allows the tester to build up an accurate model of the tested molecule, thus allowing the sample to be identified. The GC-MS process was perfected some time ago, but in recent years the equipment used in order to carry it out has been greatly improved and it is now judged to be almost 100% reliable. As the drug is metabolised very slowly within the body, a positive sample cannot be used to ascertain when the substance was ingested.

It has been claimed that at the time Clenbuterol was detected in Contador's sample, there were only four laboratories in the world with the ability to detect in in such minute quantities - this has been declared false by independent scientists.

How much was found?
When news that Contador had tested positive was first made public, it was reported that the amount of Clenbuterol discovered in the sample was 50pg/ml of sample - 0.00000000005grams per millimetre; some 400 times lower than a laboratory is expected to be able to detect in order to receive WADA approval.

This, the probable cause of the "only four laboratories" rumour described above, was subsequently found to be incorrect; the actual amount being 40 times lower than a WADA laboratory must be able to detect - however, according to Dr. Douwe de Boer (recruited by Contador and his lawyers to act as scientific advisor during the case), this would need to be increased 180 times before any effect of athletic performance became noticeable. Secondly, no trace of the drug had been found in samples provided on the 19th or 20th of July, nor at any other point during his career: thus, it seems very unlikely that he was micro dosing - a technique that, in view of Clenbuterol's slow metabolisation rate, would be useless anyway.

How could it have got there?
Contador continues to insist that he has never deliberately doped. Therefore, if we assume he isn't lying, we need to decide other ways in which Clenbuterol may have got into his body. The first and most obvious candidate is the consumption of contaminated meat, the explanation given by the rider himself. This is far from unknown: in September of 2006, 330 people in Shanghai suffered health problems after eating pork from pigs that had been treated with the drug. 60 people in the Chinese province Guangdong ingested it in the same way  in February 2009. In 2011, several players in the Mexican national soccer team and 109 players in the Under-17 FIFA World Cup - held that year in Mexico - provided samples that tested positive for Clenbuterol. All the players claimed that contaminated meat was to blame and, as it is known that the drug is used by Mexican farmers, WADA accepted their claims and they escaped sanctions.

As we have already seen, the EU could find only one positive sample among 83,203 samples of European-produced meat and, over the same time period, 19,431 samples of Spanish meat turned up not a single positive result.

However, the Spanish public have developed a taste for beef over the last few years and the amount consumed within the country has soared. Meanwhile, Spanish production of beef has fallen - from 670,408 tonnes in 2006 to 575,000 tonnes four years later. Where's it coming from?

Most of Spain's beef imports originate in the Netherlands, a nation which is far more strict when it comes to which drugs can be administered to animals that it is on which drugs people can administer to themselves. Ireland provides the next largest EU share, but since the same laws apply there the Emerald Isle isn't likely to be the source of dodgy steaks either. Most of the remainder comes from Uruguay, Brazil and Argentina, and in the last couple of years the former Eastern Bloc nations of Poland and Romania have begun supplying live cattle for slaughter in Spain. Contador claims to believe that he ingested the drug by eating contaminated beef bought at a shop attached to a slaughterhouse in Irun, a town in the Basque Country, subsequently visited by a WADA team who could find no evidence of contaminated meat at the facility. However, Jacinto Vidarte, acting as spokesman for the rider's legal team, says that it is impossible to prove for certain that the meat was not contaminated. After all, the Irun meat is only the meat that Contador says he believes is to blame; if he genuinely did not deliberately use Clenbuterol, which as we have seen is metabolised very slowly, it may also have come from meat bought elsewhere. The Court declared that "...on the basis of all the evidence adduced, the Panel considers it highly likely that the meat came from a calf reared in Spain and very likely that the relevant piece of meat came from the farming company Hermanos Carabia Munoz SL" (paragraph 328).  Very likely is not the same as definitely. In these days when much of what we eat has been transported halfway around the world before finding its way into our kitchens, can we truly be certain that he did not unwittingly ingest the drug in this way?

How else might it have got into his body? The CAS, via a press release after their verdict, said: "The panel found that there were no established facts that would elevate the possibility of meat contamination to an event that could have occurred on a balance of probabilities." Note that they also cannot prove it definitely didn't. They go on: "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." Once again, there is no proof that Contador willingly ingested the drug and a rather large chance that he may have done so accidentally and without his knowledge - this would not be the first time an athlete has failed an anti-doping test without consciously doping: it happened to Scott Moninger, who was suspended for one year after testing positive for 19-norandrosterone, indication of anabolic steroid use but later shown to have come from a contaminated food supplement he'd bought in a shop in Colorado. Christopher Brandt tested positive for methadone, which was later found to have originated from a presumably rather incompetent chemist who had been preparing a methadone prescription before he prepared Brandt's prescription for an entirely different drug that he was permitted to use. Formula 1 driver Fernando Alonso was so concerned about the likelihood of consuming contaminated food whilst in China in 2011 that when away from the Ferrari team's mobile kitchen - serving food brought with them - he would eat only plain rice after personally supervising the cooking to ensure it had been boiled in bottled mineral water, otherwise surviving on energy bars.

The third likely scenario is that he received a transfusion of blood that was contaminated with the drug. Since blood transfusions can be used by athletes to boost their body's ability to supply the muscles with blood, transfusions are strictly forbidden unless carried out for genuine medical reasons. More on this explanation in the next section.

Contador's doping record

Like all professional cyclists, Contador has been subject to regular anti-doping tests throughout his career - and as perhaps the most talented stage cyclist of his generation and a three-time Tour de France winner, he comes under especial scrutiny. It's no surprise then that, in a sport which has done more than any other in an attempt to prevent the issue that twice nearly killed it and has accounted for several of its most shining stars, he has been linked to doping in the past.

In 2006 he and five other members of Astana-Würth were prevented from taking part in the Tour de France after they were connected to Operación Puerto. He and four of the other men were subsequently cleared of wrong-doing and the rider swore under oath that he neither knew nor had links to Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, about whom the investigation was centred - yet Le Monde reported that he had refused to undergo a DNA test which would have proved whether or not any of the preserved blood found at the doctor's laboratory was his. Three years later, in a column in the same newspaper, Greg Lemond claimed that to climb Verbier as quickly as Contador had done in that year's Tour would be impossible "without falling back to the use of performance enhancing products." Several experts later refuted claims made by Lemond and his advisor, Professor Antoine Vayer, saying that while Contador would undoubtedly require an unusually high VO2 level it would not be "so high that you can definitively state that it can only be achieved via doping."

The day before he provided the sample that tested positive for Clenbuterol, Contador underwent another test - which turned up plastic residue in his urine. In the past, the presence of plastic residue has been shown to be indication of blood doping, the plastic having come from the plasticisers added to blood harvested from an individual before its stored ready for future re-transfusion into the body. The test that discovered the residue was not approved by WADA, meaning that the results were not admissible as legal evidence - and as such, Contador has never had to explain them, nor done so. The CAS decided that this scenario was unlikely (paragraph 454).

That leaves the contaminated food supplement theory, as proposed by WADA: an explanation that will be all too familiar to Amber Neben, another professional cyclist who, in 2003, tested positive for 19-Norandrosterone (a metabolite of the anabolic steroid Nandralone, which promotes the production of red blood cells and in turn boosts the body's ability to transfer oxygen to the muscles, as does Clenbuterol) at the Road World Cup. She was banned pending investigation immediately after the test, but the CAS subsequently ruled that whereas doping had occurred, there was no evidence that it had been done deliberately and accepted the rider's explanation that a contaminated food supplement was to blame; then handed her a six-month ban backdated to the time of the test and agreed that she would subject to increased tests for the following eighteen months. Contador, meanwhile, rejects this theory; saying that he only used food supplements supplied to him by the Astana team, for whom they were selected by the team's assistant coach and chief masseur (paragraph 461). CAS maintains that it is the most likely explanation, but notes that it cannot be proved that the rider's assertion to have only used Astana's supplements (paragraph 462).

The UCI and WADA's case

(image credit: kei-ai CC BY 2.0)

The legal concept of onus probandi, burden of proof, states that an individual or party that has provided satisfactory evidence that another individual or party then becomes subject to the benefit of assumption. Since all defendants are automatically assumed innocent unless proven otherwise, the the prosecution must show beyond doubt that their accusation is founded and, if they can do so, the defence then bears the burden of proof and must demonstrate reliable evidence to support their claim that the accusation is false.

In this case, Contador automatically carried the burden of proof since there is no reasonable doubt - in view of accuracy of the GC-MS testing process - that Clenbuterol was present in his body. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that the laboratory which carried out the test mixed up his sample with one from another athlete - his defence team have not introduced such a scenario as a possibility though they will undoubtedly have looked into it; leading us to the conclusion that they consider it extremely unlikely. Many people are in no doubt whatsoever that the rider is guilty of deliberately taking Clenbuterol (the hundreds of thousands of Tweets over the last 24 hours referring to him as Dirty Bertie are proof of that), but as the case stands the UCI and WADA have not been able to prove this. If we assume that he did not and was not willing to falsely confess, his only remaining option was to attempt to describe other possible ways in which the drug might have got into his body in order to raise sufficient doubt for a favourable verdict. Unfortunately, the ideal - submitting a sample of the beef he says he ate for analysis - was not available, because by the time he'd tested positive he'd already eaten it and it was already back in the food chain: it is referred to as "the missing link" in paragraph 329 of the court transcript. All he could do was describe events as best as he could and throw himself upon the mercy of the court.

Conclusion
In the court transcript, paragraph 336 states: "..it is alleged that Mr Contador undertook a transfusion of red blood cells on 20 July 2010 and then – in order to preserve a natural blood profile and mask the use of such transfusion, which can be detected through the Athlete’s Biological Passport (hereinafter; the "ABP") - the next day (21 July 2010) injected plasma (to hide the variation of haemoglobin values) and erythropoiesis stimulation (to hide the variation of reticulocytes) into his system. According to the Appellants, it is the transfusion of plasma of 21 July 2010 which could have contaminated the Sample with clenbuterol, resulting in the adverse analytical finding." The Court then decided this was unlikely to be the reason for the failed test (paragraph 454). That Clenbuterol, a drug banned under international athletic rules, was found in a sample provided by Alberto Contador at the 2010 Tour de France is in no doubt whatsoever. Contador has not tried to claim that he did not provide the sample, nor that persons unknown tampered with it - but, due to the complexities of the case,  he cannot prove for certain that he did not deliberately ingest the drug. Neither can the UCI or WADA prove that he did.

 Last year, I was accused of stealing "a significant sum of cash" from my then employer. I didn't, but my case had broad similarities to that of Contador: CCTV evidence proved that the money was in my possession at the time when it was stolen, something I had never denied - one of my duties, as a manager, was to bank the daily takings and I had placed the money in a bag belonging to myself ready to be taken to the bank. There was a period of approximately one hour after I did so during which it seems the money was stolen by persons unknown. Two days later, I was suspended from the job, then dismissed after another few days. After a six month investigation, I appeared in a Crown Court with a very high likelihood that I would be going to prison for twelve months. However, during the hearing, my excellent barrister was able to extract admissions from my employer that it had viewed only CCTV footage of me placing the money into my bag and had not bothered to check footage from the time between then and the time I took the bag to the bank. The police had also not thought to ask for that footage which, after one month, was destroyed when the video tape was reused. Whilst that might seem to be in my favour, it was not - because I needed it to prove that someone else had committed the theft and thus the burden of proof fell upon me. Like Contador, I needed to convince the Court that while a crime had been committed (theft in my case, the illegal contamination of meat in his), I was not the person who committed it. Thankfully, I have never committed a crime and have no criminal record; it was this "good character" which saved me - while I couldn't prove I hadn't stolen the money, it also couldn't be proved that I had and so the Jury found in my favour and I was unanimously cleared of the charge. Contador doesn't have that on his side. His name has been linked to doping in the past, the most damning link being the plastic residue - something he should have dealt with at the time by seeking an explanation, assuming he was not blood doping, even though the evidence found by that test could not be used alone to prosecute him. He was unable to relieve himself of the burden of proof and the Court, swung by his previous record, was not inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.

We cannot be certain that Contador either deliberately took a performance-enhancing drug or that he injected it into his body by way of an (illegal) blood transfusion. We also can't be certain that, as Contador claims, he did not. Hence, the case was decided not on proof, but on a legal technicality used to decide an outcome when proof is not available. Finally, there seems to be a very really likelihood that he unknowing ingested it in a contaminated food supplement; as we've seen, this happens - and the Court recognises that fact (paragraphs 457-460). If this scenario - favoured by the Court, remember - is the real reason for the drug found in his sample, he's no more to blame than he would be if he ate contaminated meat because food supplements are no more illegal (though adding Clenbuterol to them is, in many nations) than eating beef is. So why was Amber Neben suspended for six months and Alberto Contador for two years? Does the UCI have an axe to grind after he escaped charge when the plastic residue was discovered? Could it be that they and WADA want to use his enormous celebrity as winner of six Grand Tours (three editions of the Tour de France, two of the Giro d'Italia and one Vuelta a Espana) to make an example of him, leaving nobody in any doubt that both organisations are serious about ending doping? It is possible that he's a liar, a doper who thought he was clever enough to get away with cheating in a sport he professes to love - but there also appears to be a reasonable possibility that an innocent man who truly does love his sport is being unfairly punished as a result of circumstance. Four things are certain:

  1. Contador's punishment, as the case now stands, is unfair.
  2. We don't know what happened.
  3. We cannot be certain that justice has been done.
  4. If, as he well might, Contador decides to appeal, this chapter in the history of cycling is far from over.

What next for Contador?

"This is bad for cycling." Johan Bruyneel 

Alberto Contador, the three-time Tour de France winner who tested positive for a miniscule trace of the banned drug Clenbuterol in 2010, has been found guilty by the Court for Arbitration in Sport and handed a two-year ban and will also be stripped of his 2010 Tour victory.

The ban will be backdated to the 25th of January 2011. As he was provisionally suspended for a period of five months during the initial investigation, he will be able to return to competition in August this year - too late for the Tour but in time for the Vuelta a Espana. Online betting sites have slashed odds of Cadel Evans winning a second Tour de France from 5/1 to 2/1.

"It’s an excessive punishment. It’s bad for everybody, for the reputation of cycling, for sponsors." Eddy Merckx

In view of the failure to disprove the rider's claim to have ingested the drug in contaminated beef, two years seems an unexpectedly harsh punishment - six months to a year was considered the most likely punishment by many. He is reported to have said he does not agree with the decision and will call a press conference in the near future and what he plans to do next should then become known: he may now decide to appeal; but having already spent a huge amount of money on lawyers he might also decide to accept the decision, especially now that the UCI are likely to be given the go ahead to fine him €2,485,000. In 2010, he said that if banned he would retire; but this seems an unlikely course now.

Andy Schleck now becomes the official winner of the 2010 Tour, but has said that he does not accept the title and will continue to consider Contador the rightful victor - and says he can win on his own merit. Contador's 2011 Giro d'Italia victory will also be disqualified, making Michele Scarponi the winner.

CAS details here.
Riis Cycling press release here.