The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has today confirmed that the WADA and UCI appeal against Alberto Contador will reach a conclusion tomorrow, thus dismissing recent media suggestions that the complexity of the case could lead to it dragging on past that point.
CAS has also made it clear that a decision would arrive at some point in 2012, presumably in January.
“In the morning of 24 November 2011, the CAS Panel in charge of the procedure WADA & UCI v/ Contador & RFEC will hear the parties’ closing submissions at the CAS premises,” it said in a brief statement released a few minutes ago. “The hearing will be closed at 12:30pm. There will be no press conference after the hearing. The CAS decision in this matter is not expected before the end of 2011.”
Contador is under investigation after testing positive for Clenbuterol during last year’s Tour de France. He has insisted that the substance got into his system through eating contaminated beef. HoweverWADA is thought to be pursuing the possibility that the rider may have transfused blood which was extracted at a point in time when he could have been using Clenbuterol in training.
Several current and past team-mates have already given evidence in his defence. The triple Tour winner is still due to face the CAS panel, and is thought likely to do so this afternoon.
Spanish newspaper AS reported today that Contador’s legal team yesterday presented details of a polygraph [lie detector] test he took in relation to his case. The report cited two experts; one, Louis Rovner, carried out the test on May 3rd in California, while the second, John Palmatier of the University of Florida, ratified the results. AS claims that this showed he didn’t undergo a transfusion. Details of the wording of the questions was not given in the newspaper’s story. Polygraph tests have featured in legal cases but are not regarded as an exact science, and so CAS will have to decide how much weight to give this part of his defence.
Some of the experts have spoken about meat as a possible source of Clenbuterol. Javier Martin Pliego spoke as part of WADA’s side yesterday, saying that there is only a one in 20,000 chance that beef contaminated with clenbuterol in Spain. Meanwhile Sheila Bird argued for the defence in claiming that only 900 out of a million cattle are tested in Europe, and just one percent in Spain.
Fluctuations in the rider’s biological passport and the presence of plasticizers were also discussed, showing that the case is a more complex one than about Clenbuterol alone.
A large number of experts and witnesses have been called by both sides. More details about their identities and areas of expertise are here: