Flies and Bikes Blog

Velonews reports more on Contador's "doping violation" (Former French doping chief says there have been rumors about Contador since July, quoting Pierre Bordry (former head of the French anti-doping agency AFLD) as saying rumours had been flying since July.  Interestingly, he says of the small concentration detected (40 times less than a lab is required to be able to detetc - not 400 times, as widely reported) that

“It doesn’t matter how small the quantity is. Clenbuterol is on the banned list,” Bordry told RTL radio. “Contador can do what he wants to make a defense, if it had entered his system one way or another, but he cannot avoid that it is a banned substance.”

That's all fine and dandy, but raises the possibility that an athlete's guilt or innocence might depend on which testing lab his/her samples go to and how far below the reuired sensitivity thay are able to take the detection. Hardly seems fair to me. In the meantime, accusations have been flying that Contador had taken an autologous blood transfusion on the rest day: Contador has flatly rejected those accusations (Alberto Contador denies receiving blood transfusions).