Clean or not, Contador's presence in the Tour will not be an embarrassment

British hopeful Bradley Wiggins, who recently won the Critérium du Dauphiné and in doing so proved himself back to the form he displayed when he came fourth in the 2009 Tour de France, has said that "it is not a good thing [for cycling] that a bloke who tested positive four times is in the race" in reference to Alberto Contador who tested positive for the banned bronchodilator Clenbuterol during last year's Tour.

Contador, like any professional cyclist at the top of his game, is no stranger to the murky world of doping. In 2006 he became caught up in the notorious Operation Puerto which followed Jesus Manzano's exposure of widespread doping in his team and the shady practices of Doctor Eufemiano Fuentes, but was subsequently cleared of all charges by the Spanish courts and by the UCI. He was questioned again in connection with the case in December and rather inadvisably refused to submit to a DNA sample which would have either proved or disproved links to nearly a hundred bags of blood plasma - each with a cheeky shot of EPO for an added kick - that had been recovered by police during their investigation. In doing so, he probably did his career more harm than a conviction would have done - had he have been linked to it, he'd have received a suspension and once it had passed he could have returned to the sport. By refusing, he ensured that there was always going to be a great big question mark hanging over him. However, anyone who has ever found themselves the target of false charges will be well aware that once you're cleared you want to move on and continue with your life - Contador may regret refusing the DNA test now, but at the time he must have been heartily sick of the entire case and hoped to hear the last of it.

Contador is almost unique among climbers in that he can also perform at a very high level in time trials, a factor that has contributed to his success.

That question mark haunted him in the 2009 Tour when, following a spectacular climb up Verbier - the fastest in Tour history - in Stage 15, Greg LeMond wrote in a column for the Le Monde newspaper that Contador would have needed an oxygen transport rate in excess of that achieved "by any athlete in any sport" and demanded that he proved he was capable of such a feat "without falling back to the use of performance-enhancing products" and likened his victory to that of "a Mercedes sedan winning on a Formula 1 circuit." During a press conference the next day, Contador once again unwisely decided to side-step the issue, increasing suspicions further. LeMond had based his accusation on figures calculated by Antoine Vayer, the trainer of the rival Festina team, which were called into doubt by physiologists including the highly-respected Andrew Coggan. Vayer assumed that Contador would have needed to maintain an average power output of 490 watts which, in a man weighing 83kg, would equate to 99.5ml per hour per kg - which would be unusually high. Coggan criticised Vayer's calculations which he termed sloppy and noted several areas which could contribute to false results, such as failing to take in decreased air resistance at altitude. Furthermore, virtually all the top riders had climbed Verbier in record times that day - including Andy Schleck and Lance Armstrong, neither of whom have ever been proven to be involved in doping despite countless accusations and investigations in the case of Armstrong - suggesting that conditions on the mountain were simply conducive to high-speed cycling. He also noted an inconsistency between Vayer's given length of the climb, 8.6km, and the official length as given by the Tour de France organisers, 8.8km, more than sufficient to skew the results. Coggan concluded that the rider's average power would in fact have been more like 450 watts, equating to an oxygen transport rate of 80ml per hour per kg which could be expected for a man of his build and level of fitness.

As we all know, Contador gave a urine sample in September 2010 which tested positive for a drug called Clenbuterol, a sympathomimetic steroid and bronchodilator prescribed to asthmatics to ease breathing - thus enabling more oxygen to be absorbed into the blood - and the cycling press leapt on the case like starving wolves, in some cases predicting the end of his career. Once again, it was only a matter of time before doubts arose - what had at first seemed to be a case of an athlete being caught red-handed in the act of cheating turned out be rather more complicated. First of all, Contador failed one test only - his sample was declared clear in other tests to which it was subjected. Various people involved in cycling went on record stating that Clenbuterol is of little use as a performance-enhancer, especially in the miniscule amounts suggested by Contador's sample which were 40 times lower than would be required for any noticeable effect and Dr. Douwe van Boer (Contador's scientific advisor) claimed that it would have to be administered in amounts 180 times that discovered in the sample to have any chance of giving the recipient a competitive edge, supporting Contador's explanation that he had not deliberately taken the drug and that it had entered his system via contaminated food, most likely beef - it was used by veterinary surgeons to relax the uterus in cows and can be used illegally to promote the growth of lean meat in livestock destined to become food, which appears to add some credence, as does the support for the explanation given by Dr. Don Catlin, a highly-respected scientist and one of the driving forces behind modern anti-doping measures.

If he can repeat his 2008 Vuelta
success, Contador will be the
only cyclist to have won all
three Grand Tours in a single
season.

The incident led to the Spanish Cycling Federation proposing a one year ban for the cyclist but, following an appeal, all charges were subsequently dropped in early 2011 and he returned to professional racing in February. The independent World Anti-Doping Agency and UCI both appealed the Spanish decision to the Court for Arbitration in Sport in March and a hearing was scheduled for June but later put back after Contador's lawyers requested more time to prepare. It is now scheduled for early August later this year, until which time Contador is legally free to ride in professional events. If that's the case, there should be no reason that he should be singled out for a crime that in view of his current cleared status he should be considered not to have committed and banned from taking part in this year's Tour de France - during which he will doubtless be subjected to a barrage of tests and will, if he cheats, be found out. Bearing that in mind, the decision to enter the race if he is/has been doping would seem extraordinarily stupid because a positive test will ruin his chances with the Court.

The UCI supports this view, stating that until the Court finds him guilty, should it do so, Contador "has the right to be treated like every other rider who takes part in the Tour de France." Reporting on the case, Republican American says that his participation in the race could do great damage to the sport and compares it to Lance Armstrong's return from retirement in 2009. However, the opposite is more likely to be the case - if Contador consistently produces clean samples this year, his status as one of cycling's true heroes and an all-time great will be cemented and will pave the way for him to attempt victory in the Vuelta a Espana, which would make him the only cyclist ever to have won all three Grand Tours in a single season and which would generate enormous publicity for the sport. If he cheats and is found out - and there's little doubt he would be - then professional cycling can be shown to have got its act together following the scandals of a few years ago and the sport's reputation cane be repaired once the world is aware that those who obtain an unfair advantage by using performance-enhancing drugs will be caught and will be stripped of their titles.

"It is also bad for those teams that are fighting to be clean, as is the case with my team, Sky," says Wiggins, who has become Britain's best-ever hope of a Tour winner. If that's the case, he should welcome Contador's chance to prove that he too is clean, because if an athlete can perform in the way he does without resorting to drugs then that's one of the strongest arguments against doping anyone could ever want.

Doping in Cycling

Depending on who one talks to, doping (the use of drugs to have an effect upon peformance) is either the biggest problem to face cycling or one of the more amusing and interesting aspects of the sport. Doping allegations have been a part of the Grand Tours since the inaugural Tour de France in 1903 when riders used alcohol and ether to deaden the pain felt during and after the phenomenally long stages. The use of performance enhancing drugs dates to even earlier days, having been a part of the sport before the Tour began. Health concerns - as opposed to allegations of cheating - didn't appear until the years following World War 2 and  began in earnest following the death of British rider Tom Simpson from heart failure brought on by  amphetamines, alcohol and sheer exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux in 1967, though concerns had been raised earlier including in 1960 when Frenchman Roger Rivière plunged into a ravine and broke his neck, choosing to blame a mechanic for leaving oil on the wheel rims. Doctors who treated Rivière later stated that their patient had such high levels of drugs in his body that, in their opinion, he would have been either unable to judge when to brake or physically incapable of doing so. Rivière later admitted this and confessed to having a drug addiction and swallowing thousands of tablets each year.

Tom Simpson brought doping to the public's attention after he died as a result of heart failure brought on by amphetamine use in 1967. A memorial erected where he fell on Mont Ventoux has become a site of pilgrimage for cyclists from around the world.

Since the criminalisation of doping in 1965, the UCI and race organisers have introduced ever more sophisticated measures designed to prevent doping, whereas those riders willing to risk it have strived to keep one step ahead - as one observer put it, "The Tour, in fact, is only possible because - not despite the fact - there is doping." Mandatory testing in French events began in 1966, revealing that a third of the riders subjected to tests at that year's Tour returned positive results.

Tests for other drugs became available in the 1970s including for Pemoline, a drug which has a similar effect to amphetamines and saw Eddy Merckx (considered by many to be one of the greatest cyclists in history) caught out in 1977. Steroid and corticoid use became so prevalent during that decade that it was said that only the high cost of obtaining them in the sort of quantities cyclists got through limited their use; when Jan-Luc van den Broucke tested positive in 1978 he went on record saying, "There was a mass of steroids used in the Tour, everyone will admit that. How can we stay at the top otherwise?"

EPO, erythropoietin, was a revolution in cycling on a par with the invention of derailleur gears and had a correspondingly enormous impact on the sport. Not only did the drug boost the production of red blood cells, thus allowing the muscles to receive more oxygen and nutrients for a longer period, it was also impossible to distinguish it from the testosterone naturally produced in the body. Organisers were forced to adopt a system whereby any rider tested and discovered to have a haematocrit level (red cell count) in excess of 50% (45% in men and 40% in women is considered normal in healthy adults) would be required to "rest" from a race for a given period. However, since cyclists frequently use high-altitude training to boost red cell counts, this system could lead to false accusations and was far from ideal.

Richard Virenque confessed to using EPO, a drug that became so prevalent in cycling that the term was almost synonymous with doping.

EPO use became so prevalent that estimates of how many riders were using it in the Tours between the late 1980s and 2000, when a test was finally developed, and the term became almost synonymous with doping. To this day, messages still appear painted on the roads of the Tour accusing riders disliked by those respinsible of "l'EPO." Matters came to a head in 1998 when the Festina team soigneur Willy Voet was arrested as he attempted to enter France with a bag full of banned drugs including EPO, testosterone amphetamines and an assortment of various growth hormones and narcotics - now, even those with no interest in cycling became aware that drug use was rife within the sport and there were even calls for all cycling events to be axed from the Olympics for fear of giving out the message to young sports fans that drugs could be used to enhance performance. Such has been the furore surrounding the matter since that accusations of doping, even when based on no evidence, are now used as an underhand tactic designed to undermine an opponent's credibility and tire him out with the rigourous testing to which anyone under suspicion will be subject - and testing can be rigourous indeed; as Lance Armstrong, himself the target of several doping allegations based either on nothing or his association with Michele Ferrari, who was convicted of supplying drugs to athletes, reveals in his autobiographies the UCI testers can strike at any time, anywhere and any attempt to escape them is liable to result in increased suspicion. They can even show up at a rider's private home and demand a test there and then - and a positive test isn't the only way to get a ban, failure or refusal to give a sample can also be viewed as legitimate reason.

The 2006 Tour looked set to become farce when Operation Puerto carried out by the Spanish police revealed yet more widespread drug use. Five members of the Astana team were banned, leaving an insufficient number to start the race, along with two members of T-Mobile and one each from CSC and AG2R-Prevoyance. Floyd Landis of Phonak tested positive for suspiciously high testosterone after Stage 17 and was later banned from the sport for two years.

2006 was possibly the worst ever year for doping in the Tour de France with one team unable to start after five members received bans. A number of other riders were also later caught out.

The Tour in 2007 began with suspicions flying all over the place - even Alessandro Pettachi, an asthmatic, was suspended after he tested positive for salbutmol, a very common anti-asthma drug. The suspension was later overturned after further tests revealed that the drug was present only in quantities confirming to standard therapeutic usage but too late, he'd already had to miss the Tour. Two German television companies abandoned their plans to film and televise the event and Astana abandoned the race after Kazakh Alexander Vinokourov tested positive following the second time trial, subsequently retiring from the sport (though he has since returned and raced in the 2011 Critérium du Dauphiné. Then following Stage 16 and a positive result supplied by Christian Moreni, Team Confidis also abandoned and Michael Rasmussen was ordered to leave the event by his team Rabobank for failing to provide a sample when required to do so during two consecutive days a fortnight before the Tour.

A list of riders convicted, sanctioned or suspected (with some grounds) to have doped is virtually indistinguishable from a list of the great names in the sport: Jacques Anquetil, Tour winner in 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964 who managed to achieve detection whilst active, confessed to doping following his retirement; Eddy Merckx, five time Tour winner and one of the most successful cyclists in history, provided four positive samples and was banned from one Giro d'Italia; Stephen Roche, tour winner in 1987, was believed to have used EPO in 1993 but never supplied a suspicious haematocrit; Jan Ullrich, Tour winner in 1997, banned for apparently recreational amphetamine use; Marco Pantani, received a six month ban following the discovery of insulin in his hotal room; Alberto Contador, involved in the Operation Puerto case and later banned in a 2010 unrelated test; Bjarn Riis, Tour winner in 1996 and current owner of Saxobank Sungard, later admitted to have won with the help of performance enhancing drugs; Pedro Delgado, Tour winner in 1988, tested positive for a questionable substance but escaped sanctions as it was not yet banned by the UCI; Laurent Fignon, Tour winner in 1983 and 1984, positive test results after two separate events in 1989; Joop Zoetemelk, tested positive in three different Tours de France; Bernard Thévenet, confessed to doping (but wasn't caught) in the 1975 and 1977 - but not, coincidentally, in the 1976 Tour which he won; Lucien Aimar, Tour winner in 1966, banned from the Vuelta the same year after a positive test... In the last half decade, a mere nine have never tested positive for doping - Carlos Sastre in 2008, Lance Armstrong (tested positive for non-prescribed drug hormone, but result believed to be false and caused by the large number of drugs used during his cancer recovery) with his unprecedented seven wins, Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault, Lucien van Impe, Luis Ocaña, Jan Janssen, Roger Pingeon and Felice Gimondi. Were they truly innocent or were they lucky enough to escape detection? Unless any confess, we'll never know.

What would professional cycling be like without doping? Bernard Hinault, winner of five Tours de France and the only man to have won all three Grand Tours more than once, is apparent proof that results can still be achieved - he's never given a positive test.

So what will the 2011 Tour bring? The madness of 2006 and 2007 has long since died down and some commentators are willing to suggest that anti-doping tests are now so effective that the problem has been brought into check, but past history suggests it never will be and it's only a matter of time before the latest doping methods emerge into the daylight. 2010 was an unusually dope controversy-free year: French newspaper l'Equipe published a leaked document listing all the riders and the level of suspicion they were under, from 0 (no suspicion) to 10 (extreme suspicion), with examples likely to give rise to suspicion including:


 1. sudden drop in hemoglobin one month before the summer of 2010 which could point to an important loss of blood possibly destined to be re-injected during the Tour


2. suspicion of EPO use during the 2009 Giro


3. hematocrit, hemoglobin or stimulation index superior to 2010 values, which could have led to a start ban before the UCI rules were changed


4. low parameters off-race

...which revealed that the vast majority of riders were rated less then 4 - winner Contador, who returned a positive test for the banned bronchodilator Clenbuterol during the race but was not banned after successfully claiming that contaminated food was the cause, was rated at five. At present, there's no way of knowing but the riders can be sure of scrutiny this year as cycling attempts to show the world it's cleaned up its act.