Alberto Contador Is Toast

Whew! One day away from the computer leads to the most interesting results! "Baby Contador" is suspended for one year! Kudos to Strbuk, who predicted this outcome! (I have added one of her blogs to my blog list as a reward for her perspicacity.) Now we wait for the UCI to lower the boom and order the Amauary Sport Organization to rescind Alberto Contador's 2010 Tour de France title!

A one year suspension by the Spanish Cycling Federation suggests that the clenbuterol was taken by accident. Maybe so, maybe Alberto Contador ate a contaminated stake raised by some hack Spanish farmer. There have been reports of sickness due to tainted Spanish meat; but not for a number of years...

Ah well, nothing to be concerned about as the suspension allows for an appeal to the Court of Arbitration of Sport...probably nothing more than a rubber stamp formality of the Spanish Cycling Federation ban. A more interesting question: If Alberto Contador does appeal will the UCI insist that the ban be increased. Most doping cases carry a two year ban. The jurisdiction for management of the case has been transferred to WADA at UCI request, so will WADA appeal for an increase in sanction? Is WADA intervention in this case legal?

So many questions, and such a different approach from the days of yore, when the anti-doping establishment loved to hand out excess banishment. The UCI pro-tour teams were precluded from hiring a rider with a doping related suspension for four years; until Liquigas upset the apple cart and hired reformed doper extraordinaire Saint Ivan Basso to a contract! Take that Pat McQuaid, you nitwit! Old innocent, without intent to cheat, Floyd Landis, a guy we should be willing to excuse because everyone is guilty of some transgression: why cast stones when living in glass houses! got a two and a half year suspension for synthetic testosterone. True, Floyd Landis did race the Leadville 100 after testing positive, and the Leadville 100 is sanctioned by NORBA, and the UCI probably thought that Floyd was rubbing their noses in excrement. Add six months more of punishment!

My, how things change! The Alberto Contador case is so complex because you can't really determine what happened; tainted meat or transfused blood? And nobody cares enough to inquire among the team to ascertain the possible existence of a second Doctor Blood.

Christiane Prudhomme and Amauary Sport Organization are playing their cards are very close to the vest with typical French indifference, waiting for everyone else to play their cards first!