"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.
Tour de Suisse 2010
LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND -Former US gold medalist in cycling, Tyler Hamilton, continues to cause a stir a week after he said on US television news that he, but also others including teammate Lance Armstrong, used performance-enhancing drugs. He implied that Armstrong’s use of drugs was covered up by the international cycling body and the Swiss-based organization, Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency) that oversees the world’s 35 accredited labs since 2004.
Wada was created in 1999 and has been responsible for labs since 2004.
The accusations concern the 2001 Tour de Suisse.
Cycling News, which has followed the doping saga in the sport closely, published an article Wednesday 25 May that pits the word of Hein Verbruggen, an IOC official who was formerly head of the ICU (International Cycling Union), against that of Michael Ashenden, an independent member of the UCI’s panel of experts that reviews the blood passport data of professional cyclists an independent expert.
Verbruggen insists Armstrong never used doping and that there was no cover-up; Ashenden disagrees and insists on a more thorough international investigation.
Hamilton’s gold medal now in hands of US Anti-Doping Agency
The IOC (International Olympic Committee) in Lausanne said after the 19 May programme aired that it would consider stripping Hamilton of his 2004 gold medal but the US Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, confirmed that Hamilton had in fact given the agency his medal Friday, the day after the show.
Armstrong tweeted that he’d never failed even one of the 500-plus doping tests in his career, a fact with which Ashenden doesn’t disagree, saying that it doesn’t prove he didn’t use them.
Sports site ESPN notes that “Hamilton said that he saw Armstrong use performance-enhancing drugs, including the banned blood-booster erythropoietin, in 1999 and two subsequent seasons to help prepare for the Tour de France. ‘I saw (EPO) in his refrigerator. .. I saw him inject it more than one time like we all did, like I did many, many times.’”
Swiss-based ICU (International Cycling Union), the sports international body, lashed out at Hamilton after the show, stating Monday that “the International Cycling Union categorically rejects the allegations made by Mr Tyler Hamilton, who claims that Lance Armstrong tested positive for EPO during the 2001 Tour of Switzerland and had the results covered up after one of his representatives approached the Lausanne laboratory responsible for analysing test results from the event.”
Meanwhile, Alberto Contador’s doping appeal will be heard in by the CAS, the sports world international high court, 6-8 June in Lausanne. And Wada has thrown its support behind the ICU in another scandal, which erupted in France last week, when L’Equipe, a French sports newspaper, published a leaked internal ICU document that appears to have incorrectly implied that some riders were possibly guilty of doping in the 2010 Tour de France.
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.
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - French tennis player Richard Gasquet was exonerated by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Thursday 17 December from any fault or negligence over cocaine in his system, which he says was from kissing in a nightclub. The CAS agreed his assertion is the most likely explanation for the minute amount of the drug found in his system 28 March during the ATP tournament in Miami, Florida, USA.
The amount was so small that it did not reflect social use of the drug, but rather incidental contamination, the court says. “It was also established that the player was clearly not a regular cocaine user, even in very small amounts.”
Chateau de Bethusy, Court of Arbitration for Sport, Lausanne
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - French tennis player Richard Gasquet took part in a seven-hour review of his suspension by the Court of Arbitration for Sport Tuesday 10 November. The review follows demands by Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency) and the International Tennis Federation for his penalty to be increased to a one-year ban.
The review came on the day when Wada celebrated its tenth birthday, with director general David Howman saying “All over the world, awareness is much higher today than it was ten years ago . . . Global anti-doping efforts in general have become smarter and much more sophisticated with experience.”
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.
