Alberto Contador

September 21st, 2008 filed in Cycling

Alberto Contador is a Spanish professional road bicycle racer for Team Astana, winner of the 2007 Tour de France with team Discovery Channel and of the 2008 Giro d’Italia and 2008 Vuelta a España with Astana. While he competes for the overall titles, he is considered a climbing specialist. Contador was kept out of the 2006 Tour de France due to alleged connections with the Operación Puerto doping case. However, he and four other members of his team at the time, Astana-Würth, were eventually cleared of all charges on July 26, 2006 by the Spanish courts and later two out of the five (including Contador) were cleared by the UCI. Each received a written document signed by Manuel Sánchez Martín, secretary for the Spanish court, stating that “there are not any type of charges against them nor have there been adopted any type of legal action against them.”

In 2006 a document from the summary of the investigation (documento 31) was released. In it Contador initials (A.C.) were associated with a hand-written note next to his name saying, “Nada o igual a J.J.” (Spanish for “Nothing or like J.J.”). JJ were the initials of Jörg Jaksche, who later admitted to be guilty of blood doping prepared by the Spanish doctor Eufemiano Fuentes in 2005.

Alberto Contador was questioned in December 2006 by the magistrate in charge of the Puerto file. The rider declared to Judge Antonio Serrano that he did not know Eufemanio Fuentes personally. According to Le Monde, he refused then to undergo a DNA test that would have judged whether or not he had any link to the blood bags that were found in the investigation.

On July 28, 2007 the French daily Le Monde, citing what it claimed was an investigation file it had access to, stated that Contador’s name appeared in several documents found during Operación Puerto. According to some sources, Contador’s name is mentioned on a list of then-Liberty Seguros teammates that appear on a document later to identified as a list of training schedules for members of the team. A second reference includes initials of riders’ name that appeared on another training document (e.g. A.C. for Alberto Contador), although neither of those two references could be linked to doping practices.

On July 30, 2007 German doping expert Werner Franke accused Contador of having taken drugs in the past and being prescribed a doping regimen by Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, who was connected with Operación Puerto. He passed his evidence on to the German authorities on July 31, 2007. Contador denied the accusations, saying “I was in the wrong team at the wrong time and somehow my name got among the documents.” On August 10, Alberto Contador publicly declared he’s a clean rider in face of suspicions about his alleged links to the Operación Puerto blood-doping ring. “I have never doped and I have never participated in an act of doping,” said Contador, reading from his prepared statement. “I won the Tour clean. It’s impossible for me to understand the attacks made against me, questioning my integrity as a sportsman, from people who don’t know me but feel they can make such judgments. My commitment against doping is total and I will always be willing to cooperate.” Contador was joined by Discovery Channel team manager Johan Bruyneel, Spanish sports minister Jaime Lissavetzky and members of his family. - Wikipedia

What do you think, did Alberto Contador CHEAT, or did he BEAT?