Alberto Contador has announced that he intends to appeal against the suspension handed down to him earlier this week, and continued to maintain his innocence of any doping offence at a press conference at the Saxo Bank-SunGard team hotel on the island of Mallorca today. The Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) has proposed banning the Tour de France champion for one year after he returned a positive test for clenbuterol at last year’s race.
If the one-year suspension is upheld then Contador will be stripped of his Tour crown and be out of the sport until probably the latter part of August this year.
"You have to remember this is just a proposal and I will work as hard as I can to change it," he told the assembled press, according to Sky Sports. “But if that does not happen I'll appeal wherever I need to to defend my innocence to the end.
"I am an example for many people,” he continued. “I have never doped myself, never. I can say loud and clear, with my head held high. I consider myself as an example of a clean sportsman.
"I find it, therefore, very difficult to handle the things that are said about me.”
Contador tested positive for the banned substance on the Tour de France’s second rest day, but the concentration was so small (50 picograms/millilitre) that the Spanish rider has maintained that it must have come from a contaminated steak that he had had brought from Spain.
"The only mistake I have made is to have a piece of meat that I had not analysed before to check if it had clenbuterol," he emphasised.
As a cyclist, Contador is required to adhere to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) whereabouts system, which requires him to be available for testing at any time. This episode, he says, has made him lose faith in the system that is supposed to be cleaning up the sport.
"I have given everything to this sport, it's my life and I have given so much to it," he added. "I have had 500 anti-doping controls in my career, many of which were surprise controls.
"I have had to leave birthday parties, get out of a cinema midway through a film, leave family and friends in restaurants to do those controls and all because I believed in the anti-doping system. But now I don't."
Under the disciplinary process Contador has until February 9th to answer the RFEC proposal, after which a definitive decision will be made to either suspend or clear him. He will then be within his rights to appeal against the decision, as do WADA and the International Cycling Union (UCI) if they do not feel that it is acceptable.
It may be some time before we know who will take home the victory in last year’s Tour de France.