Tag Archives: cycling

Tainted food in China cited in cyclist’s failed doping test

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Using the Contador defense, an Australian cyclist who tested positive for clenbuterol has had a potential ban from the sport lifted after the sport’s governing body said he probably consumed the substance accidentally during a race in China.

michael.rogersMichael Rogers, an Olympic bronze medalist, was stripped of his victory at the Japan Cup Cycle Road Race in October 2013 after a positive test for clenbuterol. The drug, which increases the rate of fat burning and helps build muscle, is illicitly used by farmers in China and other countries on pigs and cattle to produce leaner meat.

The International Cycling Union, known by its French initials U.C.I., said Wednesday that Rogers’s disqualification in that race would stand but that any further sanctions would be dropped as “there was a significant probability that the presence of clenbuterol may have resulted from the consumption of contaminated meat from China.”

Clenbuterol has been a recurring problem in China. In 2006, more than 300 people in Shanghai fell ill from eating meat heavily tainted with the substance, which is also known in Chinese as “shou rou jing,” or “lean meat powder.” Three years later, 70 people in the southern city of Guangzhou were sickened after eating pork organs tainted with the drug.

Cyclist Cavendish barfs his way to victory in Belgium

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Mark Cavendish sprinted to victory at Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne on Sunday after a dominant Team Sky performance in the one-day road race in Belgium.

"I was ill all day and kept vomiting but I was always kept at the front by the whole team. Then when the split went on the Oude-Kwaremont it was perfect as we had three in the front while the other guys stayed with me and we didn’t have to do any chasing.

"With 50km left I still didn’t feel marvellous but just kept going and was being kept out of trouble all the time. They controlled it at the end to deliver me and with 250 metres to go I kicked and that was it."

Don’t go blaming no Spanish beef, wipe that smirk off your face; Contador stripped of 2010 Tour de France title, banned 2 years

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Perpetually smirking Alberto Contador has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory and banned from cycling for two years after the sport’s highest court found the Spanish cyclist guilty of doping.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended the three-time Tour champion after rejecting his claim that his positive test for clenbuterol was caused by eating contaminated meat.

CAS backdated Contador’s ban and he is eligible to return to competition on Aug. 6.

Contador blamed steak bought from a Basque producer for his high reading of clenbuterol, which is sometimes used by farmers to fatten up their livestock.

CAS said both the meat contamination theory and a blood transfusion scenario for the positive test were “possible” but “equally unlikely.”

“The Panel found that there were no established facts that would elevate the possibility of meat contamination to an event that could have occurred on a balance of probabilities,” CAS said. “Unlike certain other countries, notably outside Europe, Spain is not known to have a contamination problem with clenbuterol in meat. Furthermore, no other cases of athletes having tested positive to clenbuterol allegedly in connection with the consumption of Spanish meat are known.”

Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, who finished second at the 2010 Tour, stands to be elevated to victory.

Cyclist Contador says clenbuterol came from contaminated meat, not doping

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Blame it on the steak.

Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador went to sport’s highest court on Monday to argue his case that contaminated meat caused his positive drug test at the 2010 Tour de France.

Contador did not speak to reporters as he arrived at the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a four-day hearing into one of the most scrutinized doping cases of recent years.

Contador’s legal team will argue that a contaminated steak he ate on a rest day in the Pyrenees caused his positive test for clenbuterol, a banned anabolic agent.

If found guilty of doping, Contador can expect to receive a two-year ban and be stripped of his 2010 Tour title and his 2011 Giro d’Italia victory.

About 20 witnesses are expected to appear at the hearing, including the Spanish butcher who sold the steak, a polygraph expert and anti-doping scientists.

The three-man arbitration panel, composed of Israeli chairman Efraim Barak, German law professor Ulrich Haas and Geneva-based lawyer Quentin Byrne-Sutton, is likely to issue its verdict in January.

‘Gasquet’s kiss’ to clear Contador of clenbuterol?***

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It was just a kiss.

Two years ago French tennis player Richard Gasquet was cleared of doping after insisting he had tested positive for a tiny quantity of cocaine because he had kissed a girl in a disco in Miami. Both the French Tennis Federation and WADA considered that even though this was an unlikely cause for a positive, it was the most probable reason.

Cycling Weekly – which I read daily – reports that a lawyer for Alberto Contador will use essentially the same defense: that even if eating contaminated beef sounds like an implausible reason for finding tiny traces of a banned substance in his organism, that is the most likely explanation.

If the glove don’t fit you must acquit.

Also, like Gasquet said about his cocaine positive, the clenbuterol could have had no effect on his performance because it was present in such tiny quantities.

Cycling is a mess.
 

Cyclist positive for clenbuterol, claims contamination

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Another cyclist has been caught eating at the Mark McGwire café and another is blaming Mexican meat for testing positive for clenbuterol.

The Danish cycling federation Tuesday revealed that Philip Nielsen, 23 (right, exactly as shown), of the continental Concordia team, tested positive for clenbuterol during the 2010 Vuelta a Mexico.

Nielsen won stage 8 of the Mexican tour in April and both A and B samples have come back positive. His case now is making its way through the Danish disciplinary process.

Nielsen claims he was not doping, but did offer an excuse of how the banned product found its way into his system.

Italian Alessandro Colo also tested positive, but he claimed that his test was triggered by eating contaminated meat in Mexico.

The Nielsen case comes as Spanish officials consider what to do with Alberto douchebag Contador (left), who is facing a two-year ban and disqualification of his Tour de France crown after he tested positive for the substance en route to winning last year’s Tour.

Doping body dismisses Contador’s contaminated meat claims

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Hot off the presses from today’s issue of Cycling News, World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman has dismissed Alberto Contador’s (right, sorta as shown) claims that his positive test for Clenbuterol at this year’s Tour de France was caused by contaminated meat bought in Spain.

Speaking to journalists during a meeting at the WADA headquarters in Montreal, Howman pointed out that the contaminated meat excuse has been used in the past but rejected during anti-doping hearings.

WADA is reportedly monitoring the Contador case very closely and is ready to step in if a disciplinary hearing is not arranged swiftly by the UCI and the Spanish Cycling Federation.

Howman added, "It took a year to set the Landis hearing up the first time around. … At some stage somebody is going to have to say, ‘here is the hearing date’."?