Alberto Contador: A Lot of Blather

Whew.  There was an incredible amount of simpering about the mistaken positive test of Alberto Contador for clenbuterol: a known anabolic steroid commonly abused in cycling to enhance performance.  Equally perplexing was the incredible amount of leniency shown by the Spanish authorities who concluded that the positive clenbuterol test could be explained by eating contaminated steak imported from Spain into France during a second rest day dinner of the 2010 Tour de France.  The Spanish Sport Federation acceptance of the Alberto Contador alibi was an incredible leap of pariah faith; meat as a source of contamination that would test positive by modern valid and reliable testing currently used by WADA accredited laboratories was declared an impossibility by some medical experts. The whole farce was compounded with an incredible exoneration by the Spanish Spot Federation that supposedly adhered, as a World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) signatory to the sacrosanct, ironclad rule of strict liability, or the notion that an athlete is responsible for the chemicals that are contained within their bodies, in proper ratios, whether legal or illegal.  The concept of strict liability was the guiding principal of the Richard Young WADA code; sacrosanct and unsuccessfully unchallenged by any athlete in the history of doping arbitration, and this bedrock principal should never be modified under any considerations ever.  There must have been a breakdown in communication, or a brief period of lunacy, by the Spanish Sport Federation who for inexplicable selfish reasons, forgot to enforce the golden standard.  WADA calls for harmony of all adherents whether it be the laboratories or case management and detractors are sadistically prodded back into line with electric devises, like cattle.

It must have been quite a shock to WADA when the Spanish decided to protect their cycling hero by accepting insidious propositions by blatantly ignoring the universal concept of strict liability; a concept that has caused an amazing amount of pain and suffering among innocent athletes who made silly mistakes or who acted in ignorance.  But under the WADA dialectic silly mistakes or ignorance are unforgivable and indicate intent.  Even in rare cases where it can be conclusively proven that intent be absent, suspensions and loss of income and prestige continues unabated, only for a shorter duration.  And this cornerstone founding principal of the war against doping; strict liability: would continue a gilded guiding principal, except for the fact that these nation states continue to insist on ignoring the obvious test results that prove doping, and substitute fictional fables in order to protect their favorite sons reputations against unfair onslaughts from vindictive skeptics who are intent upon debasing a honest athlete's character.

Not that WADA or it's signatories need any examples on how to defame character, although after the demise of Dick Pound there has been a vast improvement.  Alberto Contador and his legal team have insisted that the Court of Arbitration of Sport plug the leaks, after all, the arbitration hearings are to be held in "strict confidence" to protect the athlete from arbitrary and unfair assaults from the media, blogs, and other assorted riffraff.  Perhaps the paranoia generated from the cruel and unreasonable assault upon hapless Floyd Landis made these WADA people reconsider their own orchestration of the media and riffraff attacks.  Incredibly, in the new evolutionary theory of fairness WADA has initiated a new era of caution; warning their people to shut up and let justice prevail.

So will justice prevail?  There were hints that WADA was even considering modifying the golden standard of strict liability and concede that accidents happen even in the presence of a prohibited substance residing within the body of a "cheater," considering the formerly unheard of pleas of accident or ignorance, but only in exceptional cases, and only with certain known anabolic steroids, like clenbuterol, and only if the athlete happens to be an international favorite like Alberto Contador.  As of days of yore, all other athletes and performance enhancing substances would have to adhere to the "old standard of strict liability" and serve the minimal bans as before, without exception.  Whether modification of the strict liability rule would have been an improvement or a liability in the case of Alberto Contador, with his lame excuses, and accepting the fact that other athletes would provide similar lame excuses as to the cause of known anabolic steroid positive tests, it is difficult to conceive of a proper cost- benefit analysis as a guide for leniency in relaxation of the enforcement of strict liability rules as a proper action, considering human nature and the need to succeed under any circumstance where the ends justify the means.  So you see the modification of the rule does not seem so clear cut and may invite others to engage in practices that would support a deception of detection, a hoodwinking of the fools, and money and fame in a sport event that is based on evil acts.

In any case the Court of Arbitration of Sport decision, rightly or wrongly, will closure on Alberto Contador  soap opera.  At last.