Contaminated Goods

Finally after months of legal manoeuvering the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) ruled that Alberto Contador, 3 (2) time winner of the Tour de France, should be stripped of his 2010 title and banned for 2 years for a doping violation. Contador submitted a positive test for clenbuterol, a banned anabolic agent, on the rest day following Stage 16 of the 2010 Tour. When informed of the result by WADA in August 2010, he immediately claimed that the positive reading was the result of eating contaminated meat which had been purchased from a Spanish butcher. This possible defence had proved successful in a number of suspected doping instances involving food contamination in China and Mexico. The attraction of such a defence if accepted for Contador was that consuming contaminated meat would lead to no sanction at all, whereas a contaminated supplement defence would still have led to the sanction which was ultimately imposed. Contador's biggest problem however was that similar instances of meat contamination in Europe are vanishingly small. CAS found no evidence to support the proposition that Contador had eaten meat contaminated with Clenbuterol and found the possibility 'unlikely'.
Contador had reportedly invested huge sums on his legal team, led by 2 Brits, Adam Harris QC and Mike Morgan. He had unsuccessfully objected to the arbitrator selected by WADA. He called a host of witnesses to establish that he had eaten meat supplied from Spain, but none that could offer any convincing evidence that it was contaminated. During the course of the investigation, Contador submitted to a lie detector test which he apparently passed. The CAS Panel allowed this evidence ot be admitted, but effectively attached no significant weight to it. Contador is now left with a vast legal bill, claims for damages from UCI and the loss of titles and his reputation. He is however free to return to competition in time for the Tour of Spain (Vuelta) in August 2012. He misses Le Tour 2012 and the London Olympics.
WADA for its part submitted 2 theories. Firstly that Contador had engaged in illegal blood transfusions during the Tour and then had a plasma infusion contaminated with Clenbuterol in an attempt to mask atypical blood readings. Secondly that Contador had consumed contaminated Vitamin supplements during the Tour. Either explanation if upheld would attract a significant ban. WADA sought to introduce character issues relating to Contador's 'association' with other doping scandals and with team mates who had previously committed doping violations.
CAS for its part found that the evidence in respect of the blood transfusion theory was no more likely than the meat contamination theory, but decided that the supplement contamination explanation was the most likely. Given that the WADA Code imposes strict liability upon the athlete and accordingly places the burden upon him on the balance of probabilities to show the source of the positive test and that it was through 'no fault of the athlete's, Contador lost. The fundamental basis of the WADA Code, the athlete's responsibility for what enters his body, logically meant that Contador must lose. To find otherwise would have been to rewrite the rules and to hand the initiative back to the dopers. Whether such  a conclusion also means that Contador deliberately cheated is highly debatable. Even since the verdict, much rhetoric has issued on the subject. The head of WADA stated that Contador had been found to have cheated. Contador and the whole of Spain protest his innocence and demand justice. The Spanish Federation were found not be trusted to follow the rules, hence this case's arrival at CAS. That ' Spanish Justice' is unlikely to arrive and that 'proof of innocence' will undoubtedly remain elusive. Contador could take his case on procedural grounds to the Swiss Federal Court, but it is unlikely to interfere with the mechanics of the decision. In any event Contador and the Spanish Federation indicated at the end of the hearing that they were satisfied with their treatment by the Panel whereas WADA and UCI indicated some unhappiness. Contador has already spent huge sums of money, and the adverse publicity and loss of sponsorships are  bound to take their financial toll. Over time the minutiae of this decision will be forgotten and Contador will be remembered as a 'drug cheat', who was banned for 2 years thus becoming only the second rider to be stripped of a Tour title, after Floyd Landis in 2006.
CAS was created to resolve these complex and sensitive issues. CAS has spoken. It is time to accept the verdict and move on. Contador could go on to prove his greatness by coming back stronger and demonstrably clean. His future remains to be written.
UPDATE 9.8.12
Contador returns and wins the Vuelta 2012 10 minutes ahead of Britain's Chris Froome who finished a creditable 4th.