"El Pisolero" Alberto Contador during the 2011 Tour de France (photo, SaxoBank)
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Spain’s Alberto Contador has been suspended from cycling for two years after the CAS sports tribunal in Lausanne, TAS, found him guilty on one count of doping. The winner of the 2010 Tour de France loses his crown as a result; it should now go to Andy Schleck of Luxembourg who came in second.
Contador was accused of using clenbuterol. The rider argued that he ate steak from a Basque producer, which accounted for its presence in his system.
Clenbuterol is sometimes used by farmers, although its use is banned in Europe. The hearing was in November but the CAS issued a statement earlier saying the final decision would be delayed because media rumours about the fairness of the hearing had prompted the organization to ensure the parties all agreed to the members of the panel.
The three-member panel’s president, Efraim Barak of Israel, had refused at one point to accept testimony of an expert witness brought in by Contador’s lawyers.
The two other members of the panel are Swiss: Quentin Byrne-Sutton, a Geneva lawyer, and Ulrich Haas, a Zurich professor.
Contador is the second Tour de France winner to lose his title for doping; Floyd Landis, American, lost it in 2006 title after testing positive for testosterone.
Chateau de Bethusy, Lausanne, where the CAS sports arbitration court, holds its hearings
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The Court for Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne Thursday 6 October announced a decision that could have far-reaching implications for the sports world, saying it has overturned an IOC (International Olympic Committee) ban on athletes found guilty of doping.
The immediate result of the decision, which follows an appeal against a Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency) decision by US athlete LaShawn Merritt and the US Olympic Committee, is to allow Merritt to defend his 400-metre title in the London 2012 Olympics.
The IOC has banned athletes with suspensions of more than six months for doping from taking part in the next Olympic Games. Merritt was sentenced to two years, later reduced by three months, in early 2010 for failing tests for a banned steroid.
The IOC had argued that its rule was an attempt to take a tough stance on doping, but the CAS ruling notes that “”The IOC Executive Board’s June 27, 2008 decision prohibiting athletes who have been suspended for more than six months for an anti-doping rule violation from participating in the next Olympic Games following the expiration of their suspension is invalid and unenforceable.”
The CAS says in its statement that “The CAS Panel also emphasized that if the IOC wanted to exclude athletes who have been sanctioned for doping from the Olympic Games, it could propose an amendment to the World Anti-Doping Code, which would allow other Signatories to consider such an amendment and possibly to adopt it.” Such a move would allow the principle of proportionality to be met, according to the CAS, because “only one adjudicatory body would be in position to assess the proper sanction for a behaviour”.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – The 362 doping tests run for the July 2011 swimming World Cup in Shanghai have all come back negative, FINA (world swimming federation) announced 22 August from its head office in Lausanne. The tests included 311 urine samples and 51 blood tests.
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND – Fina, the Lausanne-based international swimmers federation, has banned a number of swimmers based on doping control results, including US diver Harrison Jones and Australian water polo player James Stanton. The results date back some weeks but were recently posted by Fina. Stanton’s ban for the controversial Clembuterol, for which Tour de France cycling winner Alberto Contador tested positive, comes as the Shanghai World Championships in swimming announced a food safety programme 22 June.
The Shanghai programme says all hotels and designated restaurants for athletes, VIP officials, referees, technical officials and media stay will be checked for several substances, in addition to regular food safety checks, farm to food.
Clembuterol has been linked in a small number of cases to contamination through food.
Jones tested positive for marijuana in Iowa City, Iowa in the US 5 February and was banned for a year starting 6 April 2011. Jones, a student at the University of Southern California, won the 3-metre springboard title in Iowa City, reports USA Today. He tested positive for the substance a year earlier and received a three-month ban.
Stanton tested positive for the anabolic agent Clembuterol in September 2010 and was banned for two years, starting in October 2010.
Clembuterol tests have sparked controversy in the sports world and Wada, the Lausanne-based sports doping control agency in Lausanne, was reported by several sports publications in early to mid-June to be considering changing the rules to review positive tests on a case by case basis. Wada responded in a published statement by saying only that “each case is different and all elements need to be taken into account”.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Wada, the world anti-doping agency, is to sign an agreement with the pharmaceutical industry 6 July in Lausanne, AFP reports. The news agency says that Wada and the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Associations will sign an agreement whereby pharmaceutical companies will alert Wada to any drugs coming on line that have doping potential. Wada could not be reached for comment. The world headquarters of the sports organization is in Montreal and the European head office in Lausanne.
Armstrong will meet Cancellara in Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Lance Armstrong will be back in the Tour de Suisse cycling race for the first time since he won it in 2001.
The race promises to be a colourful one, with Armstrong, who won the Tour de France seven times, gearing up for the big French race after crashing out of the Tour of California in May. His crash there came just hours after former teammate Floyd Landis, who recently admitted to doping, said that Armstrong knew about and participated in the doping – charges Armstrong and several others in the cycling world strongly deny. Landis has said that Armstrong’s doping took place in 2001, when he won the Tour de Suisse race.
But the Tour de Suisse focus will more likely be on Swiss racer Fabian Cancellara, Olympic champion who promises to give a fight in the big French race. The Tour de Suisse serves as a warmup to the Tour de France for many racers.
A disappointment for the organizers of the race is that for the first time in years it will not be carried live by Swiss television stations TSR and RSI. The race dates conflict with the football World Cup, which gets television precedence. The Tour de Suisse will have to be content with an hour of daily highlights from the race, which starts 12 June in Lugano and ends 20 June in Liestal, near the German border.
Links to other sites: Tour de Suisse (Fre) preview, circuit and dates in Switzerland, Telegraph, Le Nouvelliste
International sports, cycling
California (GenevaLunch)- Lance Armstrong, the seven time winner of the Tour de France, rejected charges by disgraced fellow American cyclist Floyd Landis that he had taken performance enhancing drugs, 20 May. Landis himself was stripped of the 2006 Tour victory after testing positive. For a number of years he denied doping but has now admitted to a series of violations. Armstrong said that Landis had no evidence and had lost all credibility a long time ago.
Links to other sites: Wall Street Journal, CNN
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The World Anti-doping Agency (Wada) celebrates its tenth year this week as it finds itself faced with the blunt admission by one of the all-time greats of the tennis world, Andre Agassi, that he took the highly addictive drug crystal meth 12 years ago.
Agassi’s autobiography Open, to be released 9 November, contains the admission, but Wada’s statute of limitations is eight years, so Agassi is technically outside the sports and drugs monitoring organization’s reach.
Austria (20 Minutes, Fre) – Bernhard Kohl, who placed third in the Tour de France and was the best climber, has admitted to doping after he took a hard fall in the Dauphiné.
