Germany threatens to drop Tour coverage
In light of Thursday’s announcement that Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has failed a blood test taken during the Tour, German television stations ARD and ZDF are considering dropping their coverage of the cycling race.
“We are having discussions with ARD now. But there is basically no decision,” said ZDF spokesman Walter Kehr.
It’s not just because of Contador. The list of doping scandals gets bigger by the week, and when three more riders are suspended in a single day, including the three-time winner of the biggest cycling race in the world, somebody is bound to have had enough.
ARD doesn’t have much faith in Contador’s claims of innocence either.
“ARD has obtained the exact values from Spain. This shows that it is not very likely that we deal with contaminated foods, especially in light of the fact that in Europe, it is highly unlikely that foods, such as meat, are contaminated
with clenbuterol,” explained ARD journalist Hans Joachim Seppelt.
Contador is one of three Spaniards to be suspended almost simultaneously. Ezequiel Mosquera and David Garcia, of team Xacobeo-Galicia, have both had tests taken during the Vuelta a Espana returned with positive results. While Contador
has hired doctors and lawyers to back up his claim of food contamination, a number of independent sources have claimed that the test results suggest that it is much more likely that the minimal traces of a banned substance got into his blood via a transfusion.
“Other values have appeared that are ten times over the higher value from so-called plasticizers which are used in blood bags. These values were measured one day before the positive dope control. These blood bag softener values could
indicate that autologous blood doping may have been performed.”
Germany previously cancelled their coverage of the 2007 Tour de France when Patrik Sinkewitz tested positive for synthetic testosterone, and have been wary ever since. In 2008, it was revealed that German cyclists Stefan Schumacher
and Bernhard Kohl has doped during the Tour, so Germany capped their daily Tour coverage for 2009 to a total of 30 minutes. After a relatively clean year, they increased the cap to 60 minutes for the 2010 Tour, but now their faith has been shattered again.
“You can ask the question if it is a cycling problem or a problem of organised sports,” said Seppelt. “I think the UCI has a problem and a president who lies. He clearly stated that there is no doping case, only to say the opposite
the next day.”
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