Contador’s ‘contaminated meat’ excuse rejected

For those who care about the doped up world of cycling, the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) has found no evidence to support Alberto Contador’s claim that contaminated meat was responsible for his positive doping test.

Sapa-AFP reports the Tour de France champion was provisionally suspended following a positive test for clenbuterol, a banned weight loss/muscle-building drug.

The Spanish rider has claimed that the positive result, which followed a doping test during the Tour de France in July, was the result of eating contaminated meat.

But a report by WADA obtained by the newspaper El Pais said its experts visited the butcher’s shop in northern Spain where the meat was purchased and the slaughterhouse that supplies it, and found no evidence of clenbuterol in any of its products.

"None of the inspections, none of the tests on samples of meat found traces of clenbuterol, a banned drug used to fatten cattle quickly," El Pais said.

The report also cited a European Union study from 2008 in which experts tested 300,000 meat samples but found evidence of the possible use of clenbutorol in only one of those.

"Obviously, farmers who cheat will never slaughter their illegally fattened cattle until about 20 days after the last dose of clenbuterol for two reasons: to avoid being caught by checks on the meat and to allow the anabolic steriod to have its full fattening-up effect," the WADA report said, according to El Pais.

If suspended for two years, the 27-year-old has threatened to quit the sport.

Bye-bye.