Contador blames bad meat for positive doping test
Published:Thursday | September 30, 2010 | 5:56 PM
Three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador blamed contaminated steak for his positive doping test, vowing today to clear his name so that cycling's latest drug scandal doesn't destroy everything that he had done.
The Spanish rider was provisionally suspended after a World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Germany found a very small concentration of the banned substance clenbuterol in his urine sample on July 21 at the Tour.
Contador, who came close to tears several times during a news conference today that it was a clear case of food contamination.
Contador says the beef was brought across the border from Spain to France by a Spanish cycling organiser, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron, during a Tour rest day and at the request of the team's chef.
The International Cycling Union says the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was 400 times less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect.
Both Contador's A and B samples tested positive, and the cyclist has been formally and provisionally suspended.