Although his main rival Alberto Contador has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title, Andy Schleck has insisted that he is not pleased to be named the winner of the race.
“There is no reason to be happy now,” he said from Majorca, where he is training and also riding the Mallorca Challenge. “First of all I feel sad for Alberto. I always believed in his innocence. This is just a very sad day for cycling. The only positive news is that there is a verdict after 566 days of uncertainty. We can finally move on.”
Contador was today ruled guilty of a doping offence by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). It ruled that his positive test for Clenbuterol during the 2010 Tour almost certainly originated from a contaminated food supplement.
Under its strict liability rules, it meant that the rider was at fault for the banned substance in his system and would lose the result. He is also banned until August 5th of this year, and concedes a number of other race results including the 2011 Giro d’Italia victory.
Schleck has tried for four years to win the Tour, placing second in the past three editions. He’s now deemed the winner of one of those, but doesn’t want the title.
“I trust that the CAS judges took all things into consideration after reading a 4,000 page file. If now I am declared overall winner of the 2010 Tour de France it will not make me happy,” he said. “I battled with Contador in that race and I lost. My goal is to win the Tour de France in a sportive way, being the best of all competitors, not in court. If I succeed this year, I will consider it as my first Tour victory.”
Schleck’s statement echoes similar sentiments expressed by Oscar Pereiro after Floyd Landis was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title.
He is currently racing for the RadioShack Nissan team, while Contador is currently with the Saxo Bank squad, albeit suspended.