The triple Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has blamed contaminated meat for his positive doping test during this year's race.
The Spaniard was provisionally suspended after traces of the bronchodilator clenbuterol were found in a urine sample provided on the second rest day of the Tour de France on 21 July. The sample was taken in Pau the day before the most important stage of the race through the Pyrenees. If the cycling authorities feel that the substance was ingested for performance-enhancing purposes, Contador could lose his Tour title.
"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told a news conference in his home town, Pinto, near Madrid today.
He said the meat was brought across the border from Spain to France during a rest day during the Tour. Contador said he ate the meat on 20 July and again on 21 July. He said he was not the only rider to eat the meat, but that he was one of the only ones who had who was tested afterwards. He called his suspension by the sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), "a true mistake".
The UCI also announced today that two Spaniards had failed dope tests during this year's Tour of Spain. Ezequiel Mosquera, the runner-up, and his team-mate David Garcia Da Peña both tested positive for a blood plasma substance.
Contador said he learned of his positive test on 24 August and met UCI doctors two days later. "On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened," he said. "The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination."
He said he has been in conversation with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyse it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim".
A statement from the UCI, issued this morning, said that the concentration of clenbuterol found in Contador's urine was 50 picograms, 400 times less than the threshold required by a World Anti-Doping Agency accredited laboratory, and that investigations were in progress. "This case required further scientific investigation before any conclusion could be drawn. The UCI continues working with the scientific support of Wada to analyse all the elements that are relevant to the case," said the statement. A B sample had confirmed the initial test result, leading the UCI to provisionally suspend Contador.
Earlier today, Contador told the Spanish radio station Cadena Cope: "It's possible to put your hand in the fire and not burn yourself. If it had been a clear case of doping it would have come out a week later. The food poisoning came from a cut of meat from Spain."
This August, Contador switched from Astana and signed for the next two years with Bjarne Riis's Saxo Bank-SunGard team. In a statement, Saxo Bank said: "It is Riis Cycling's hope that this case can be resolved in a orderly and timely fashion as it is in the best interests of all parties involved that the proper conclusions are drawn within a reasonable period of time.
"The team has had and will continue to have the position that cheating of any form will not be tolerated."
Clenbuterol is a bronchial dilator similar to the asthma drug salbutamol, which assists the breathing and oxygen transportation and can also be used to help weight loss as it increases the rate at which fats are metabolised.
The director general of Wada, David Howman, told the Associated Press that testing positive for even the most minute amounts of clenbuterol could be enough to sanction an athlete, although he declined to discuss the specifics of Contador's case.
"The issue is the lab has detected this," Howman said. "They have the responsibility for pursuing. There is no such thing as a limit where you don't have to prosecute cases. This is not a substance that has a threshold.
"Once the lab records an adverse finding, it's an adverse finding and it has to be followed up. Clenbuterol is a substance that has been used for over 20 to 30 years. It is not anything new. Nobody has ever suggested it is something you can take inadvertently."
Andy Schleck, the Luxembourg rider who finished second in this year's Tour and could be in line to inherit the title if Contador is stripped of his victory, said he hopes Contador is innocent.
Schleck tweeted today: "What a crazy day in cycling with the news about Contador. I only heard about it in the press. I hope he is innocent." And: "I think he deserves the right to defend himself now."
Neither the UCI president Pat McQuaid nor the Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme answered calls early today.
The most high-profile case in cycling to date involving clenbuterol dates back to 1997 and the triple green jersey winner Djamolidin Abduzhaparov. Although the strict liability rules of drug testing mean an athlete is responsible for the substances found in his body, a case in 2009 involving the swimmer Jessica Hardy was contested and resulted in her having her two-year suspension reduced to a year after she stated that she inadvertently took a supplement that was tainted with clenbuterol.
Contador was initially linked to the Spanish blood-doping ring Operation Puerto in 2006, but denied any wrongdoing and was eventually cleared in that same year, but he is by no means the first Tour de France winner in recent years to face drug allegations or contested tests.
In 1994 the five-times winner Miguel Indurain was "positive" in France after traces of the asthma drug salbutamol were found in his urine and judged to be over the limit for that country, but was then cleared by the UCI as he had declared it as medication which he was entitled to do under the governing body's rules.
The seven-times victor Lance Armstrong has been subjected to drug allegations for the last 10 years, and is currently at the centre of a Federal investigation in the US, but has always strongly denied any drug-taking and none of the allegations have ever been proved.
The only Tour winner to be found positive and stripped of his title is Floyd Landis of the US, who was banned for testosterone use in 2006.
The facts on clenbuterol
Used to treat breathing disorders as a decongestant and bronchodilator.
Causes an increase in aerobic capacity, blood pressure and oxygen transportation. It also increases the rate at which fats are metabolised.
It has been advertised as a weight loss drug and prescribed, commonly under the name Ventipulmin, for treatment of horses suffering from breathing disorders.
Features on the 2010 Wada banned substances list as an anabolic agent.
Athletes who test positive for clenbuterol can face a two-year suspension.
Several food contaminations were reported in recent years, especially in Asia.
In 2008, the American swimmer Jessica Hardy voluntarily withdrew from the Beijing Olympics after a positive test for clenbuterol. Her suspension was cut from two to one year after an arbitration panel said she took the drug inadvertently.