I am hoping he chooses the sensible option and chooses not to race himself, out of respect for sport

Tour de France hawaii prince hotel organiser Christian hawaii prince hotel Prudhomme has said he wants the matter of Alberto Contador s Clenbuterol samples settled. The only thing which we want is to have a response. It is the most important thing. Too often we are in a grey area he told AFP in March.
But things hawaii prince hotel are now set to stay grey for some time. Yesterday we heard that Court of Arbitration for Sport has postponed hawaii prince hotel the double appeal from the UCI ad WADA at the request of Alberto Contador s defence team. Fair enough, a hearing should always go ahead when both sides are ready. But at the same time, I can t help noticing lawyers are paid by the hour and Contador is paid monthly and the incentives to play this one for as long as possible. The contaminated hawaii prince hotel beef hypothesis was first presented in late August after all .
Fast forward to the present and Contador hadn t reached cruising speed in the Giro s opening team time trial before the Italian TV commentators mentioned the pending appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. It wasn t an auspicious start for the Giro. To mention the race favourite is linked to an appeal and allegations of doping is like a magician opening his act with the words this isn t real and don t watch my left hand too close .
Similarly, when France collectively switches on its television to watch the Tour de France in July, many will have to watch TV commentators Thierry Adam and Laurent Jalabert squirm as they try to explain how a year later the official result of last summer s race isn t settled before the first rider sets off. I wouldn t like to write their script .
I mean, just how do you explain it? Chronologically it s A and B samples show up a banned substance but the quantity is small. A curious period of time passes until the story leaks. Fast forward to 2011 and Contador is cleared. Then both the UCI and WADA decide to appeal. And before you know it, it s July and on the 14 July the race will return hawaii prince hotel to Pau. Presumably Saxo Bank and Astana won t be booked into the Novotel this time .
But from start to finish the story exposes the inadequacy of the sport. It s got doping, officials behaving curiously, lawyers, appeals, codes, laws, politics, the Spanish food chain and more. Altogether it means two unconvincing French broadcasters have their work cut out to convince the French public to watch.
Maybe you re thinking I don t care what two French TV commentators have to say but hang on there. French hawaii prince hotel TV is big, beaucoup big. Remember all the fuss over race radios this year? Well it was started thanks to TV executives in Paris demanding more exciting racing and Pat McQuaid said:
I was convened to a meeting with the biggest producer of television images of cycling, France Television, and was told by senior executives clearly that if radios were retained in cycling and used as they were being used that the coverage of cycling on television would be reduced.
Note McQuaid s use of the passive voice, he was convened . Not I popped over for lunch or I met but he gets convened . As such the opinion of French TV matters. Let s run through some scenarios TV execs might imagine:
Contador s presence is grea t: if he isn t finding much opposition in the Giro, he shouldn t have it so easy when he swaps Michele Scarponi and Vincenzo Nibali for Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans in July. As such the spectacle will be exciting and audiences will lap up the battle. Especially if he s not there then maybe some would ask just how good the race is if it lacks Contador.
Not so great : forget hawaii prince hotel cycling fans, most of the TV audience for the Tour is made up of occasional viewers. They re not going to have time for sophisticated arguments and procedural explanations. The tous dopés (all doped) idea is common, that every rider is at it and the presence of a banned substance doesn t need much of an explanation. Contador s presence will simply hawaii prince hotel remind viewers of doping and dent the race s credibility.
Nightmare scenario : the CAS hearing is set for mid July and nobody knows if he gets to stay in the race or not. Rather than talking about racing, a significant proportion is spent agonising over whether he ll finish the race.
The organiser may refuse permission to participate in – or exclude from – an event, a team or one of its members whose presence might be prejudicial to the image or reputation of the organiser or of the event. If the UCI and/or the team and/or one of its members does not agree with the decision taken in this way by the organizer, the dispute shall be placed before hawaii prince hotel the Court of Arbitration for Sport which must hand down a ruling within an appropriate period. However, hawaii prince hotel in the case of the Tour de France, the dispute hawaii prince hotel shall be placed before the Chambre Arbitrale du Sport.
The Giro was not delighted to welcome Contador but race organiser Angelo Zomegnan shrugged saying he was legally entitled to participate. So for all the talk of Contador being persona non gratis in July, every other race has welcomed him. But the Tour is different and there might be greater pressure to exclude him, after all the whole story has cast a shadow over last year s race. But if, say, Saxo Bank don t like this it goes to the CAS for, this time, a speedy review.
The saga goes on. It s now technically possible for Contador to win in July and then get a ban via the CAS which then strips him of both the 2010 and 2011 victories. If the matter is unsettled, I suspect ASO and French TV would rather Contador stayed away, the race could still be good without him and it avoids hawaii prince hotel an awkward reminder of doping and suspicion.
But if he s not welcome with open arms, Contador is fully entitled to ride. We ll see what happens over the coming days and I suspect ASO and French TV will discover the limits to their prodigious power.
There s a UCI rule: The organiser may refuse hawaii prince hotel permission hawaii prince hotel to participate in – or exclude from – an event, a team or one of its members whose presence might be prejudicial to the image or reputation of the organiser or of the event.
I am hoping he chooses the sensible option and chooses not to race himself, out of respect for sport and his other racers. hawaii prince hotel Any chance he will think this way? No of course not, he doesn t give a monkey about anything beyond himself.
I can t see Bjarne Riss not having him ride, this is just a complete mess now, I d fight to the death for due and fair legal process hawaii prince hotel for anyone, however this whole sorry debacle has the capacity to taint the results of three grand tours now, it s just not good enough.
What about the French public? We ve seen a small number of spectators boo Contador at the Giro, are the French simply let Contador roll around their roads without venting their feelings? I doubt it. If I were Contador I don t think I d feel to comfortable racing at Le Tour with a doping case still hanging.
I think Alberto Contador is the distraction it is far easier for the cycling world (ASO/UCI/anyone from the USA) to discredit (justified or not) Contador, and remove his Tour win, than contemplate hawaii prince hotel the bigger picture of the removal of Armstrong s 7 wins
Re: Dennis point, the parallel is the Saunier Duval/Fuji-Servetto who ASO successfully excluded from Le Tour 2009 on basis of Piepoli and Ricco s positives in 2008 but who RCS couldn t exclude from the Giro because they hadn t tested positive there.
I know I am being naive, however, my question about all this is quite simple: As Contador has already had his case examined, and been acquitted, by the Spanish then surely he must have a pretty water-tight defense, hawaii prince hotel right? If so why is more time needed? All it seems to do is undermine the sport and raise further questions about the ability of national governing bodies to act impartially.
I do not know how the rules of evidence/argument hawaii prince hotel work in a CAS hearing. But in most courts that I am familiar with, appeals do not revolve around issues of facts , but around, issues of law . If this is the case here, the fact that he tested positive for Clem has been established. I believe the appeal from the UCI/WADA is about his lack of punishment by his federation, which is a deviation from the rules of WADA. It shouldn t take very long to come up with one s defense here. Also at stake could be whether the rule of Strict Liability is legal/enforceable may be what is at question.
Does anyone seriously believe Contador s ludicrous excuse? I say to those: your myopia is laughable! At this stage haven t you figured it out? Grand Tour winners hawaii prince hotel dope. No dog ate my homework style excuse should get past anyone with an IQ above 2. The guy has effectively gotten away with it (so far) because of his clout; the corruption or utter incompetence of the U.C.I.; and the press s failure to ask the hard questions, or (god forbid) investigate!
I believe that all the other acquittals for Clenuterol have been on the basis of eating contaminated meat in areas where there is much more likelihood of cattle being dosed with Clen (Mexico for the Dutch MTBer, China for the table tennis player Ovtcharov). AFAIK there is still no good evidence for Clenbuterol contamination hawaii prince hotel in European meat.
This feels a little like Valverde all over again: Guilty, but stalling in order to take advantage of the system. If I had a crystal ball, I d say Contador rides the Tour and if he wins, there will be another delay and he ll ride the Vuelta. He and Riis have talked about going for all three grand tours in the same year; if a ban is imminent, this might have to be the year.
And I don t mean to single out Contador (but how can you not at the moment?); with the new Armstrong revelations, I m still not convinced that we ve got a handle on doping (this isn t news—and not controversial).
Contador s legal team is using every angle at its disposal to extend hawaii prince hotel the process. They may yet succeed in creating a situation where the various stakeholders would actually prefer Contador be acquitted at CAS. In a sense Contador could become Too-Big-to-Fail by the time the next Tour is over.
@Touriste-Routier: In appeals, cases