Team Saxo Bank manager Bjarne Riis met with Alberto Contador today, for the first time since the Tour de France winner’s positive test for clenbuterol was announced. The Dane, who won the 1996 Tour but later confessed to doping, refused to comment when he first heard the news; at the time, he said it was “not correct” to do so.
Having spoken to the Spanish rider though, Riis is now standing behind his new rider.
“I just met with Alberto Contador,” he said to Danish TV station DR Sport. “I have no reason not to believe him.”
While Riis is willing to believe Contador’s explanation that the trace amounts of the banned substance must have entered his system via contaminated meat, he feels that not everyone that matters will. With cycling constantly branded as a dirty sport, often by other sports that rarely tests their athletes, he fears that the Tour winner will be stripped of the race and suspended.
“I am afraid that it will end in a political game,” he said, “but I hope that doesn’t mean it will. That would be unfortunate for all parties.”
Riis’ team has been decimated by riders leaving at the end of the season. Fränk and Andy Schleck are setting up their own ProTour team, taking many riders with them, Danish star Matti Breschel is moving to Rabobank, while four-time World time trial champion Fabian Cancellara has negotiated his release from the team, although he has yet to announce his destination.
The Dane has been rebuilding his squad for 2011, but things have become more complicated now with the uncertainty about Contador. If the Spanish rider is suspended he will be without the team captain that many of his new riders have been signed to serve.
“I’m close to having made up my team,” he confirmed, “and I’m still in the process of tying up the loose ends; but it’s still very open, it depends a lot on who wants to come.”