February 8, 2012
Alberto Contador stripped of 2010 Tour title
It's another sad day for professional cycling worldwide. It's not about Contador's career, it's about the credibility of a sport.
By Stephen Lars
It’s been a very long history of doping in professional cycling. During the last decades it has been the use of banned substances the one factor that keeps on aggravating a beautiful sport. Many pro racers have directly or indirectly died because of the used of illegal performance enhancing drugs, and the sports in itself has loss it’s credibility. And now, we have now experienced yet another turnout in an already known case. Alberto Contador, the Spaniard bike racer who had dominated the international cycling circuit, tested positive during a rest day in the 2010 Tour de France. Perhaps because he was leading the competition, or because the International Cycling Union (UCI) didn’t want to give yet another reason to complicate things during the biggest race of the season.
It's another sad day for professional cycling worldwide. It's not about Contador's career, it's about the credibility of a sport.
It was not until September that the UCI said that they would actually make a case against Contador, for his positive test for the substance clenbuterol. Still, it was all managed by the Spanish Cycling Federation, and by February of last year, with big pressure from the Spanish Prime Minister, the Federation decided not to sanction Contador. Still, it would be the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency that would appeal the Spanish Federation decision, and a formal case was opened at the Court for Arbitration of Sport (CAS), the sports’ highest court. And it was the CAS that ultimately decided to sanction Contador for the use of the aforementioned substance.
Contador will be stripped of his 2010 Tour de France and will be banned for two years. In what can be considered cutting a little slack from CAS, Contador’s ban was backdated and he will be eligible to return to racing on August 6th. This means that Contador will miss the Giro de Italia, the Tour de France and the London Olympics. Still, he will be able to race the Vuelta a España, that begins on August 18.
This is not the first time a Tour de France Champions is stripped from his title. And unless the whole mentality of the professional racers doesn’t change, it will certainly not be the last. The first racer to be stripped from his Le Tour title was Floyd Landis, the American who lost his 2006 title after testing positive for testosterone. Now, Contador is going to be disqualified and it will be the Luxembourgian Andy Schleck, who finished second, who will be recorded as the 2010 Tour de France winner.
The ruling on Alberto Contador came just three days after U.S. federal prosecutors dropped a doping investigation involving seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong. Contador was found guilty, but the North American story of courage and success stayed clean. Lance Armstrong was Contador’s teammate during the Spaniard's 2009 Tour victory. Considering all the changes and most recent sanctions, the revised list of champions shows Armstrong and Contador combined to win nine of the 11 Tours from 1999 to 2009.
So Contador losses one tour, that is not that much of a deal. The big question here is, what’s going to happen now. For the sake of the sport, for the credibility of cycling as a whole. It is still hard to believe that in an era were cycling was filled with doping cases, it was the guy who never doped the one who dominated the sport. Perhaps he was that good. Perhaps the sport couldn’t really take losing a guy like Armstrong to the use of drugs.
About the author
Stephen Lars is a prominent sports blogger and currently covers the cycling news, previews and handicaps for the BetIAS Sportsbook. You may reprint this article in its full content, please note no modifications to it are accepted.