The Travails of Tour Winners Past and Present

There are times when I wonder if those of us who are cycling fans are closet masochists. How else could one possibly explain, with a straight face, why people follow a sport that seems to be so scandal-plagued that it leaves the editors of various scandal sheets scratching their heads wondering not whether to run another story about a doping contretemps involving a Tour de France winner, but rather wondering which story should be on the front page, and which should be relegated (or buried) within the publication.

With maybe one exception (Carlos Sastre, I’m looking at you), the winners of every Tour de France held in the last decade have been implicated in a doping scandal — or rumored to be connected to a doping scandal. Just after the beginning of the year, Oscar Pereiro — who gained the official win for the 2006 Tour de France due to the travails of Floyd Landis — finally got free of the albatross that is Operacion Puerto.

Ever since the scandal broke in 2006, Pereiro was rumored to be the athlete referred to by the code name “Urko”  in Dr. Fuentes’ infamous records. Turns out that revelations from a new Spanish doping scandal (Operacion Galgo) suggests that Dr. Fuentes’ “patient” was actually the track and field star Marta Domínguez, instead.

Pereiro, who retired from professional cycling at the end of 2010, expressed some “sadness” on learning that he is not “Urko.” As VeloNews.com reports:

“Ah, I am not Urco, what a disappointment,” Pereiro joked in an interview with his local paper, La Voz de Galicia. “This revelation isn’t a relief, but proof that people speak just to speak, and spread rumors without any foundation.”

Yep. Got that right. There are people who speak just to hear the sound of their own voices, and they don’t really care what they say — as long as it gets them some attention. How else can we explain the blow-hard bloviators of talk radio and various cable “news” networks. But I digress.

Pereiro’s countryman Alberto Contador seems to be headed for a bit of an extended vacation from cycling. The Spanish newspaper El Pais appears to have been first to report that Contador will receive a one-year ban for testing positive for clenbuterol during the 2010 Tour de France. Contador will also be stripped of the 2010, according to news reports.

Juliet Macur of The New York Times writes that Contador will speak about his situation at a press conference on Friday in Mallorca, where he is training with Saxo Bank, his current team. Contador is, apparently, trying to keep focused on training.

“Right now the most important thing is to remove yourself a bit from everything that is going on around you and focus on working, which is what can bear fruit in the future,” Contador said.

If Contador really is banned for only one year, Chinese professional cyclist Li Fuyu may wind up with a reduced ban, as well. Li — who tested positive for clenbuterol earlier in 2010 when he was part of Team RadioShack — received a two-year ban, despite offering a very similar defense as Contador’s. The reasoning behind the Contador decision is yet to be seen. But Macur gets an interesting point of view from a lawyer well-versed in anti-doping cases.

“If his defense was strictly that it must have been contaminated meat, then I would think they must have accepted that reasoning in order to reduce the penalty,” Howard Jacobs, a lawyer who specializes in defending athletes in doping cases, said. “But if they accepted that it was contaminated meat, I don’t see why they gave him a penalty at all. It’s difficult to say how they came to their decision. Maybe there was some element of the defense that wasn’t made public.”

Reuters, meanwhile, is reporting that Contador’s spokesman has confirmed that the cyclist received a one-year ban in connection with the case. Agence France Presse also has the story, including this:

“Alberto Contador has received today a notification of one year ban proposal by the Competition Committee of the Spanish Federation,” said the spokesperson.

“Therefore, together with Bjarne Riis (director of his team Saxo Bank), a Press Conference will be held next Friday, January 28, at 16:00 hours (1500GMT), at the Hotel Son Net in Palma de Mallorca, to express their opinion about this case.”

O, to be a fly on the wall in Mallorca on Friday. Whatever Contador and Bjarne Riis have to say about the situation, the last chapter in Contador’s travels through the anti-doping looking glass won’t be written for some time to come. Both the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Cycling Union (UCI) have the option to appeal the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Contador does, too, if he wants to go for broke and try to avoid any suspension at all (though, the reality is that by sitting out of competition while the case drags on, he will be serving a de facto suspension, even if he does file an appeal).

Given WADA’s track record, they are likely to appeal, in order to lengthen Contador’s ban to at least a tw0-year term. The UCI may also appeal on similar grounds, or may join WADA’s appeal. It ain’t over til it’s over. And given how fast these cases move along, I wouldn’t be betting on a Contador vs. Schleck matchup for the big circle around France in July.

Of course, if the one-year ban actually is upheld, Contador might be in the running to compete at the 2011 Vuelta a España come late August/early September. Whaddaya bet that ol’ Mr. Bjarne is kicking himself right about now for letting the Schleck brothers get away? As it stands now, Andy Schleck appears to be moving up to first place in the 2010 Tour. Contador may well be unavailable for the 2011 Tour. The Schlecks, on the other hand, will be there gunning for another win — this time, though, a win on the road and not in the test tubes.

Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong and his former teammate Floyd Landis have been in the news. In part for a certain Sports Illustrated article (hat tip to regular commenter AustinCyclist for the link), and in part because Landis formally retired from professional cycling last week. The Sports Illustrated article is worth a whole post of its own (coming soon), so I won’t delve into a discussion of it here. Bonnie D. Ford and T. J. Quinn of ESPN.com did a good question and answer piece about the Armstrong investigation and how it compares to other investigations Jeff Novitzky has been a part of. Take a few moments to give their article a look.