KIDWCKED
09-30-2010, 09:37 PM
c/p from foxsports by the a/p.
PARIS (AP)
Three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador blamed contaminated meat Thursday for his positive doping test during this year's race, the latest blow to a sport battered by drug scandals.
The Spanish rider has been 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, according to a statement from cycling governing body UCI.
Best bad excuses
Why did they allegedly do something wrong? Here are some of sports totally unbelievable excuses.
"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told a news conference in his hometown near Madrid.
Contador said the meat was brought across the border from Spain to France on a rest day during the Tour at the request of the team's cook.
Contador said the meat was brought by a Spanish cycling organizer, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron. Cerron said earlier Thursday on Spanish radio that he was a friend of the team chef, who had complained of poor quality meat at the hotel where the team was staying.
Contador said he ate the meat on July 20 and again on July 21. He called the UCI's suspension of him "a true mistake."
Contador said he learned of the positive test on Aug. 24 and met with UCI doctors two days later.
"On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened. The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination," Contador said.
He said he has been in conversations with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyze it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim."
The UCI said the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was "400 time(s) 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," the UCI said.
With seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong now back in retirement, Contador is cycling's biggest star, so it could be devastating for the sport if the Spanish rider is proved to have cheated.
PARIS (AP)
Three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador blamed contaminated meat Thursday for his positive doping test during this year's race, the latest blow to a sport battered by drug scandals.
The Spanish rider has been 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, according to a statement from cycling governing body UCI.
Best bad excuses
Why did they allegedly do something wrong? Here are some of sports totally unbelievable excuses.
"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told a news conference in his hometown near Madrid.
Contador said the meat was brought across the border from Spain to France on a rest day during the Tour at the request of the team's cook.
Contador said the meat was brought by a Spanish cycling organizer, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron. Cerron said earlier Thursday on Spanish radio that he was a friend of the team chef, who had complained of poor quality meat at the hotel where the team was staying.
Contador said he ate the meat on July 20 and again on July 21. He called the UCI's suspension of him "a true mistake."
Contador said he learned of the positive test on Aug. 24 and met with UCI doctors two days later.
"On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened. The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination," Contador said.
He said he has been in conversations with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyze it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim."
The UCI said the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was "400 time(s) 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," the UCI said.
With seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong now back in retirement, Contador is cycling's biggest star, so it could be devastating for the sport if the Spanish rider is proved to have cheated.