Mexican athletes wary of eating beef before PanAm Games

MEXICO CITY (AP):

Some Mexican athletes competing in next month's Pan American Games are shying away from eating beef because they fear it may contain the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol.

Five Mexican football players tested positive for clenbuterol earlier this year, but the Mexico Football Federation cleared them, saying contaminated meat caused the positive tests. The World Anti-Doping Agency is appealing the case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

"We only eat chicken or fish," fencer Nataly Silva said recently, speaking of the athletes' routine at the government-sponsored training centre. "When we go out we don't eat meat, although we love tacos. When we ask for tacos, we ask for chicken."

Bernardo de la Garza, director of a national agency that handles sport and culture, recently asked athletes not to eat beef.

Meat will be safe to eat

And Carlos Andrade Garin, president of the Pan American Games organising committee, has guaranteed that meat will be safe to eat in the athletes' village.

"It is normal after what has happened that people are worried," sprinter Jorge Alonzo said. "I no longer eat meat to avoid giving a positive test. The authorities can do everything possible, but what if you go around the corner and eat a taco and you test positive? Everyone has to take care of themselves."

The Pan American Games open October 14 with 6,800 athletes competing in Guadalajara, Mexico.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has acknowledged that contamination with clenbuterol is a problem in the country, where it is used to bulk up livestock.

The Mexico case is WADA's second high-profile challenge to a legal defence of eating tainted meat.

WADA and the International Cycling Union appealed to CAS after 2010 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador blamed contaminated steak for his positive clenbuterol test and was exonerated by the Spanish cycling federation. That case is scheduled to be heard later this year.