PARIS – Three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador will not attend the 2011 race’s presentation next week after being suspended by the UCI for a positive doping test.
Contador’s spokesman Jacinto Vidarte told Thursday’s edition of L’Equipe newspaper that the Spanish rider won’t be in Paris because of an ongoing doping investigation.
“We are still waiting for the UCI’s verdict,” said Vidarte. “We always hoped that the decision would be …Â Details
Alberto Contador advances a host of claims, from contaminated meat to questionable laboratory practices, to explain why he shouldn’t be punished for testing positive at this year’s Tour de France for the banned performance-enhancer clenbuterol. But closer scrutiny of his arguments suggests that his lawyers could have a very hard time getting the three-time Tour champion off the hook. Here are some reasons why:
THE BEEF: Contador says the only possible explanation is that a filet mignon he ate was contaminated by clenbuterol and that is why minute traces of the drug showed up in his urine. It is true that farmers in Spain, where Contador says the meat was bought, and other countries are known to  … Details
Who’s in charge here? What does the Board of Trustees do? How does Collegiate Cycling relate to USA Cycling? It’s a confusing mess out there, and the overall structure of collegiate cycling, and USA Cycling as a whole, can be confusing at times. So here’s a breakdown of the four basic elements of collegiate cycling governance:
USA Cycling: Formerly a group of associations that went by a number of different acronyms (NORBA, USCF, NCCA, USPRO, etc.), USA Cycling is now a single non-profit company with a single logo and a single mission: to achieve sustained success in international cycling competition and grow competitive cycling in America. It’s as simple as that. The organization covers all the major disciplines of competitive cycling, so there’s no longer any such thing as NORBA, the NCCA, or the USCF. Using one of those acronyms is akin to calling the US Constitution the Federalist Papers, or your mother by her maiden name, or talking about the League of Nations headquarters in New York City. It’s just USA Cycling, and we are bike racing in America. Period. Collegiate, non-collegiate, on-road, off-road, two wheels, or, well, two wheels. (We delegate to our US Olympic Committee partners, USA Tricycling and USA Unicycling for more- or fewer-wheeled competition …Â Details