Time to dispel doping doubts

Is Alberto Contador guilty? Is Spain's latest Tour de France hero a dope cheat? Ahead of the upcoming hearing at the CAS sports arbitration tribunal, I would argue that this is not the point. If the aim of sporting organizations is to rid professional competition of doping, the laws have to be applied equally across the board. What if every weightlifter, sprinter and cyclist – especially the latter – was listened to when they said “it must have been that meal way back when”? Stake out the steak, seize the peas, source the sauce… 

Here's the beef: a banned substance, in this case a growth hormone called clenbuterol, showed up in the cyclist's samples. With no material evidence to support the steak story, Contador is effectively asking the authorities to take his claim on good faith. Unfortunately for Alberto, cycling's reputation is already rotten to the core. Contador should take his punishment; the same bitter pill many other unfortunate or misguided athletes have had to swallow in the name of the anti-doping battle. The challenge is to come back from a ban and prove people wrong by winning clean. 

 
Of course, Contador's story of tainted meat bought at random in an Irún butcher's, taken to the team's hotel in France but consumed only by the race leader and the Spanish contingent of Astana riders may be true. In this other debate, that of Alberto's honesty, being played out in the media, it would also seem fair to listen to the Basque stockbreeder's association, which rejects outright the possibility of the illegal (not just for sporting purposes) hormone showing up in meat from that region. The chances of this happening, they argue, are rarer than any Latin meat lover's sirloin. Then there is the tangential implication of a young Contador at the disgraced Liberty Seguros team in the Operation Puerto doping ring to be factored in to any weighing up of probabilities. Intriguing as these circumstantial tidbits are to report on, they are ultimately irrelevant to the doping case in hand.

In the absence of a full judicial probe which could sink its teeth into issues of whether the Astana team's solitary steak story stands up, the only evidence that matters is the lab test. The quantity of clenbuterol found is extremely small but that could be explained by the theory that the hormone was a rogue trace that turned up in the cyclist's blood after a mid-race transfusion. Given that such auto-transfusions have become a favorite modus operandi among doping athletes, as shown in the Puerto and Greyhound investigations in Spain, this possible explanation of Contador's result has to be taken seriously.

Fairly or not, the international sporting community has its suspicions about the remarkable Spanish success story of recent years. While sensationalist claims in sports papers such as L’Équipe about Rafa Nadal doping have a distinct smack of envy, some of the goings on within the country’s institutions do serve to foment misgivings. Spanish cycling in particular seems to have been engaged in a cover-up for years. In 2004, ex-Kelme rider Jesús Manzano gave a detailed confession of the chemical life of a modern-day cyclist to the As sports paper, a vision that was entirely borne out by the Operation Puerto police probe two years later. But one of the many athletes implicated in Puerto, Alejandro Valverde, had to be investigated by the Italian Olympic Committee, while Spanish justice and sporting authorities managed to allow the wealth of evidence from Puerto go stale.     

 
Under pressure to take a firm line, Spain’s cycling federation at first recommended a one-year ban for Contador; a reasonable compromise perhaps given that a two-year penalty is possible. Then there was the prime-ministerial tweet out of turn. With days to go before the final verdict was given, Zapatero decided to float into the fray, opining on his Twitter feed that “there is no legal reason to sanction Contador.” Known for his trademark pointy eyebrow symbol in Spain, foreheads were certainly furrowed across the world after this intervention and Contador's subsequent absolution in a country which was already under suspicion of leniently looking the other way in the anti-doping fight while celebrating an exceptional period of sporting prowess.

The latest example of this apparent lenient streak was served up in the case of Alemayehu Bezabeh, acquitted last month by Spain’s track & field disciplinary authorities of intention to dope while on his way to receive a transfusion of his own blood, extracted a month previously, in the company of former mountain bike champion Alberto León who was to commit suicide after the details of Operation Greyhound were made public.      

Comments

[Publicado por: Galder]

Alberto Contador is not guilty so is not Marta Domínguez:

http://www.ingenioconsaboralaca.com/2011/04/te-ruego-me.html

[Publicado por: Shimano105]

If memory serves, Puerto also turned up evidence of footballers having doped. Yet nobody's going after anybody in La Liga. And we have yet to see the same kind of breast-beating in Athletics or, God forbid, Major League Baseball... how many baseball fans have given up their sport because of A-Rod, Barry Bonds or Roger Clemens (who faces jail time for having lied to the US Congress, not for having taken prohibited substances)?

If the only answer is to nail dopers to the cross, then go after EVERYBODY, no matter how much money they earn or how many jerseys they sell.

[Publicado por: James Badcock]

Tienes razón Ignacio. Se me había olvidado la historia completa. Lo cambio y gracias por corregirme.

[Publicado por: Ignacio]

the article reads "Contador's story of tainted meat bought at random in an Irún butcher's, taken to the team's hotel in France but consumed only by the race leader may be true".

I remember hearing Contador saying that not only he ate from that piece of meat. Other 2 riders ate from the same meat but only Contador had to pass the control.
What's the point in stating clearly "consumed only by the race leader"? If you make this mistake, you well might make others mistakes in the article; this is why as soon I read that i stopped reading you.

[Publicado por: Luis]

Spot on. Prima facie evidence of doping and a weak (or perhaps preposterous) alibi means Contador has to be sanctioned. This is the beginning and the end of it.

The doubts on the country's stance vis-a-vis doping activities are growing and this is of no benefit to the country or its athletes. Having the President weigh in was completely inappropriate and counterproductive