What Contador's suspension means for Euskaltel
Perhaps ironically, Samuel Sánchez will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Alberto Contador's suspension. The two are known to get along well and have on numerous occasions cooperated during races - most recently to good effect at the 2011 Tour de France. It now transpires Samu will move up to third in the Tour prior to that, the 2010 edition, in the wake of Contador being stripped off the title. Not that he'll rejoice, though.
The math is simple: Samu finished fourth behind Contador, Schleck and Menchov in 2010. Scratch el Pistolero off that list and Samu is on the podium. Whether that'll affect Euskaltel's WorldTour standing or not is an unknown at the time of writing. In theory the team should, retrospectively, be awarded additional points for a podium placing. But, as mentioned, only time will tell if that'll materialize.
In addition, and of lesser importance, Koldo Fernández will move up from third to second in the 2011 Spanish road race championships, seeing as Contador was the runner-up to JJ Rojas in that race. Mikel Nieve will also move up to third in the 2011 Giro's mountains classification.
Talking to Marca earlier today, Samu voiced his dismay at CAS' decision.
9 comments:
It's a shame, a total disgrace. Those guys are hypocrites and totally corrupt. They destroyed the career of Valverde and now they do the same with the greatest cyclist of the nillies. How boring TDF would be without Contador. 0,00000000000005? Armstrong doped all his carreer and gets nothing, guess he has the right advocates. Suisse/frensh guys are just jaleous about Spanish successes. Maybe they should take a look at all those green frensh guys who were flying this tdf, that frensh guy Rolland beating Contador and Samu on Alp d'Huez, hilarious! Black day for cycling.
Haha, you're funny dude :D Something would be very wrong if Contador didn't get a punishment for this. And yes, Armstrong got of way to easy, but is that really an argument to let people cheat today? Isn't this a sign that things are about to change?
As I see it, TdF 2011 was a clear sign that the peleton have become A LOT cleaner than before. Guys like Rolland and Voeckler are known to have an anti-doping attitude. Something the UCIs "suspicion list" from the Tour 2010 confirms...
We all know it: Spanish cycling needs a cleanup! Living in denial won't help save our sport!
I agree Bolsen3. All of 2011 showed that cycling is getting cleaner. Voekler was a pretty good cyclist before, but now that people more people are riding clean he was able to have the year that he deserved. Same goes for many other riders as well.
They found something in his blood, something... It can't be proved it was caused by dope. It could also be from food, as some experts say. So you have to know every small detail in your body where it comes from? In a normal case, beyond cycling, with this kind of prove, you will never be seen as guilty. And Spanish cycling doping? Same goes for all teams in the periode 1992 - 2006. I agree and I hope it's cleaner these days
Well said Bolsen, Spanish cycling really needs a clean-up!
They didn't just find "something", Kristof, they found Clenbuterol, witch is widely used as a performance-enhancing drug in sports and by bodybuilders. It's mostly used for burning fat more effectively, and it's a banned substance.
Getting Clenbuterol in your blood trough meat is very unlikely in Europe, and I'm confident that CAS made the right decision in this case. Although I do agree that it's not an easy case at all...
But Contador is not some Kohl or Ricco, it's a champion which needs no dope to win. I admit that I have a lot of sympathy for him I might be a bit objective here. He colours every race he participates, remember tdf last year he attacked on each mountain. How boring cycling would be with only guys as Cadel Evans. I respect your opinion about Rolland and the whole Europcar team, but I do not believe it. Kern really flied in the Dauphiné, Voeckler which always finished on 2 hours now riding for the podium, Rolland beating Conta and Samu on the Alpe, hm I don't believe it, but innocent till proven guilty. The last time we see a lot of dope cases in France, allthough these are not the big ones they don't need to speak about the cyclisme avec 2 vitesses anymore. And there was the tb 500 case in Belgium, someone from BMC linked to doping, the Ballan case,... so no need to say it's a Spanish problems. Sastre and Perreiro were never positive, Sastre even never linked to doping; same goes for Samu and Rodriguez. Fuentes had clients all over the world.
Not sure how I feel about this to be honest.
Catching cheats is important and the emphasis on ‘clean’ being placed by some teams and riders is a refreshing change from a few years ago when it was condoned/encouraged by some team managers. It does seem that at the moment riders that are passionately clean are getting results, not something you could have said a while ago. David Millar said that his manager constantly congratulating him on being the ‘first clean rider home’ when he was finishing out side the top ten was one of the things that helped to wear down his resistance.
The ruling states that the probability is that the substance came from food supplements. If they are insisting that it is his responsibility to explain how it was in his body (‘strict liability’) and he failed to adequately do so – they didn’t believe the meat theory - then why give their opinion? Are they suggesting that if he had said ‘supplements’ that they would have not banned him or given him a lesser ban? The rules clearly state that contaminated supplements are the athlete’s responsibility, so they seem to have decided that they were to blame and banned him accordingly.
Given the minute amount and the lack of any other evidence – the blood transfusion theory is dismissed as being as unlikely as the meat theory – I was surprised that they did not uphold the original one year ban.
I still don’t really understand the motivation for someone in his position to dope though. Although he was seen as being no more of a risk than Wigging on the leaked list, he will have been aware of the scrutiny all his tests would have come under so would – I assume – not have risked taking anything ever again. He then won the hardest Giro for a generation with contemptuous ease...but was not at his best at the tour....so as I said, I’m still undecided.
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