Alberto Contador and UCI reaches a settlement
Alberto Contador, who was banned from professional cycling for using clenbuterol at the Tour de France 2010, has managed to dodge the Court of Arbitration for Sport bullet, as the case has now been fully closed.
CAS stated that the cyclist and the sport’s governing body, UCI reached a settlement and has now been terminated from CAS.
The Spaniard was charged for consuming the UCI banned substance, clenbuterol during the Tour de France 2010, to which the cyclist never admitted.
He stated that the substance entered his body through the contaminated beef that he consumed just a night before the race.
However, the jury was convinced that the presence of clenbuterol in his system was not just a coincidence and that he deliberately consumed it to enhance his performance at the race.
Contador was given a back dated two year ban earlier in 2012 and the court also disqualified him from all the victories after 2010 including the overall win at the Tour de France 2010.
The ban restricted him from riding at all the major cycling races of the season including the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia and the 2012 London Olympics.
The only grand tour he was eligible to ride at was the Vuelta a Espana and he made full use of the opportunity, claiming an overall victory at the race.
The cyclist is most likely to ride the Tour de France in the season ahead but he has not yet finalised anything, keeping his options open.
“We must see all the possibilities and at the moment we are waiting to see if the team will be in the WorldTour or not, because that’s a big difference,” Contador reporters earlier.
“My statements have not been at all a way to pressure the Tour, what I said is that we analyze all the possibilities," he concluded.
In a statement issued today, the court noted, “However, the CAS has been informed of an amicable settlement between the UCI and A. Contador regarding this issue and has officially terminated the arbitration”.
Contador must pay 37,500 Euros to cover the court costs for the World Anti-Doping Agency and UCI as reported earlier this week.
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