Clenbuterol

  • Don’t go blaming no Spanish beef, wipe that smirk off your face; Contador stripped of 2010 Tour de France title, banned 2 years

    Posted: February 6th, 2012 - 11:00am by Doug Powell

    alberto_contador-420x0.jpg

    Perpetually smirking Alberto Contador has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory and banned from cycling for two years after the sport’s highest court found the Spanish cyclist guilty of doping.

    The Court of Arbitration for Sport suspended the three-time Tour champion after rejecting his claim that his positive test for clenbuterol was caused by eating contaminated meat.

    CAS backdated Contador's ban and he is eligible to return to competition on Aug. 6.

    Contador blamed steak bought from a Basque producer for his high reading of clenbuterol, which is sometimes used by farmers to fatten up their livestock.

    CAS said both the meat contamination theory and a blood transfusion scenario for the positive test were “possible” but “equally unlikely.”

    “The Panel found that there were no established facts that would elevate the possibility of meat contamination to an event that could have occurred on a balance of probabilities,” CAS said. “Unlike certain other countries, notably outside Europe, Spain is not known to have a contamination problem with clenbuterol in meat. Furthermore, no other cases of athletes having tested positive to clenbuterol allegedly in connection with the consumption of Spanish meat are known.”

    Andy Schleck of Luxembourg, who finished second at the 2010 Tour, stands to be elevated to victory.

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    Beef, clenbuterol, contador, cycling, doping, Tour De France
  • Cyclist Contador says clenbuterol came from contaminated meat, not doping

    Posted: November 21st, 2011 - 10:27pm by Doug Powell

    Blame it on the steak.

    Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador went to sport's highest court on Monday to argue his case that contaminated meat caused his positive drug test at the 2010 Tour de France.

    Contador did not speak to reporters as he arrived at the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a four-day hearing into one of the most scrutinized doping cases of recent years.

    Contador's legal team will argue that a contaminated steak he ate on a rest day in the Pyrenees caused his positive test for clenbuterol, a banned anabolic agent.

    If found guilty of doping, Contador can expect to receive a two-year ban and be stripped of his 2010 Tour title and his 2011 Giro d'Italia victory.

    About 20 witnesses are expected to appear at the hearing, including the Spanish butcher who sold the steak, a polygraph expert and anti-doping scientists.

    The three-man arbitration panel, composed of Israeli chairman Efraim Barak, German law professor Ulrich Haas and Geneva-based lawyer Quentin Byrne-Sutton, is likely to issue its verdict in January.

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    clenbuterol, contador, Contaminated, cycling, Tour De France
  • Meat on steroids, not players; Contador rejoices; doping case dropped against Mexico soccer players

    Posted: October 13th, 2011 - 3:45pm by Doug Powell

    Five Mexican soccer players who tested positive for clenbuterol before the Gold Cup will not face sanctions after FIFA determined the tests were caused by contaminated meat.

    The World Anti-Doping Agency said Wednesday it had dropped its appeal at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, where it planned to challenge a Mexico Football Federation decision clearing the players of doping.

    WADA said it accepted FIFA's "compelling evidence" from the recent Under-17 World Cup in Mexico that the country has a "serious health problem" with meat contaminated with clenbuterol.

    WADA said Mexico's government has agreed to address the issue of farmers giving steroids to livestock, which is illegal.

    "Already several arrests have been made pursuant to these laws and large amounts of clenbuterol seized. Investigations are to continue," WADA said.

    German table tennis player Dimitrij Ovtcharov tested positive after competing in China, which also has long-standing issues with illegally feeding steroids to livestock.

    Three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will use the same argument as part of his defense at CAS next month.

    Contador's four-day hearing is scheduled to begin Nov. 21.

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    cantador, clenbuterol, doping, mexico, steroid, wada
  • Déjà vu – five Mexican players test positive for clenbuterol

    Posted: July 2nd, 2011 - 8:20pm by Doug Powell

    A month ago five Mexican players were sent home before the start of Gold Cup for testing positive for trace levels of clenbuterol, a prohibited anabolic substance.

    Friday, four more players tested positive for the same substance. Health officials insisted Mexican beef doesn’t contain clenbuterol and that the incidence of contaminated beef is one in a million. They are either lying, or the Mexican soccer team is the unluckiest group of people ever. Once again, we’ll have to wait for the official investigation to be over.

    Reminds me of a CSNY song.
     

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    clenbuterol, fifa, food safety, Football, mexico, Soccer
  • Gonzalo Erdozain: Clenbuterol in beef and soccer; the blame game begins

    Posted: June 13th, 2011 - 7:57am by Doug Powell

    The governing body CONCACAF suspended five Mexican players from the Gold Cup – that’s a soccer tournament for hockey lovers – for failing drug tests.

    The players blame the beef.

    Mexico’s Health Department on Friday said that their beef does not contain clenbuterol and that the incidence of contaminated beef in the country is less than 1 in a million.

    Until the investigation is over, we’ll never know. This blame game is all too familiar; blaming something or someone without data to support claims will often end in a prolonged process, which wastes money and precious time that could be used to find the real source of the problem.
     

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    beef soccer, clenbuterol, CONCACAF
  • Cyclist positive for clenbuterol, claims contamination

    Posted: January 18th, 2011 - 5:39pm by Doug Powell

    Another cyclist has been caught eating at the Mark McGwire café and another is blaming Mexican meat for testing positive for clenbuterol.

    The Danish cycling federation Tuesday revealed that Philip Nielsen, 23 (right, exactly as shown), of the continental Concordia team, tested positive for clenbuterol during the 2010 Vuelta a Mexico.

    Nielsen won stage 8 of the Mexican tour in April and both A and B samples have come back positive. His case now is making its way through the Danish disciplinary process.

    Nielsen claims he was not doping, but did offer an excuse of how the banned product found its way into his system.

    Italian Alessandro Colo also tested positive, but he claimed that his test was triggered by eating contaminated meat in Mexico.

    The Nielsen case comes as Spanish officials consider what to do with Alberto douchebag Contador (left), who is facing a two-year ban and disqualification of his Tour de France crown after he tested positive for the substance en route to winning last year’s Tour.

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    clenbuterol, contador, cycling, cyclist, food safety, Meat, mexico, Tour De France
  • Contador's 'contaminated meat' excuse rejected

    Posted: November 17th, 2010 - 1:14pm by Doug Powell

    For those who care about the doped up world of cycling, the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) has found no evidence to support Alberto Contador's claim that contaminated meat was responsible for his positive doping test.

    Sapa-AFP reports the Tour de France champion was provisionally suspended following a positive test for clenbuterol, a banned weight loss/muscle-building drug.

    The Spanish rider has claimed that the positive result, which followed a doping test during the Tour de France in July, was the result of eating contaminated meat.

    But a report by WADA obtained by the newspaper El Pais said its experts visited the butcher's shop in northern Spain where the meat was purchased and the slaughterhouse that supplies it, and found no evidence of clenbuterol in any of its products.

    "None of the inspections, none of the tests on samples of meat found traces of clenbuterol, a banned drug used to fatten cattle quickly," El Pais said.

    The report also cited a European Union study from 2008 in which experts tested 300,000 meat samples but found evidence of the possible use of clenbutorol in only one of those.

    "Obviously, farmers who cheat will never slaughter their illegally fattened cattle until about 20 days after the last dose of clenbuterol for two reasons: to avoid being caught by checks on the meat and to allow the anabolic steriod to have its full fattening-up effect," the WADA report said, according to El Pais.

    If suspended for two years, the 27-year-old has threatened to quit the sport.

    Bye-bye.
     

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    clenbuterol, contador, doping, food safety, Tour De France