Contador tests positive for Clenbuterol

Pokerface
Pokerface Posts: 7,960
edited April 2012 in Pro race
Tested positive during the Tour. Blaming it on contaminated food:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/alberto ... lenbuterol




Did a little reading about clenbuterol and how it can be used to build lean muscle mass (not something Contador seems to have a lot of!) and how it can be ingested from tainted meat:
Therein lies a dilemma in finding an athlete who tests for abnormally high doses of Clenbuterol in his urine test. Could the athlete have ingested tainted meat that caused his high sample levels? If so, one would think that the athlete would have suffered the symptoms of food-poisoning.

Also, within a few weeks, his system would have been rid of the drug. Does food poisoning provide a convenient alibi for the accused athlete, or is it the culprit of an innocent act? As with all alleged cases of performance enhancing drug use, the governing sports bodies have a difficult responsibility in weighing the scientific origin of an abnormal test result.


Did Bertie seem to have any food poisoning symptoms after the second rest day?
The day after, Contador set up overall victory by finishing in the same time as Schleck at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet.



Surely a TrueChampion™ should have been more careful about what he ate?
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Comments

  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,137
    edited September 2010
    Well that's not good at all.

    I don't really know what to make of it. It's an unusual drug to test positive for - easily detectable and doesn't do a great deal (compared to other stuff).

    His lawyer will have his work cut out trying to get out of this one. There's no way he'll keep his win though.

    Still, the UCI never catch the big names, do they? They're protected, right?

    Maybe, it's just a desperate effort to get out of Saxo Bank, like everyone else.

    And somebody take French Fighter's belt and shoe laces off him, please.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • "clenbuterol has passed into human’s bodies after eating meat from animals that have consumed the drug in order to produce a lean cut."

    Those are dedicated livestock, thinking of us like that.
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    There will be a press conference on Thursday where he will have a panel of experts there to 'prove' his innocence.

    Contador said that a review of data supplied by the UCI makes it “possible to define precisely both the time of the emergence of the substance as well as the tiny amount detected, ruling out any other source or intentionality.”
  • Pokerface wrote:
    Did a little reading about clenbuterol and how it can be used to build lean muscle mass (not something Contador seems to have a lot of!) and how it can be ingested from tainted meat:
    Therein lies a dilemma in finding an athlete who tests for abnormally high doses of Clenbuterol in his urine test. Could the athlete have ingested tainted meat that caused his high sample levels? If so, one would think that the athlete would have suffered the symptoms of food-poisoning.

    Also, within a few weeks, his system would have been rid of the drug. Does food poisoning provide a convenient alibi for the accused athlete, or is it the culprit of an innocent act? As with all alleged cases of performance enhancing drug use, the governing sports bodies have a difficult responsibility in weighing the scientific origin of an abnormal test result.


    Did Bertie seem to have any food poisoning symptoms after the second rest day?
    The day after, Contador set up overall victory by finishing in the same time as Schleck at the summit of the Col du Tourmalet.

    As long as the levels aren'r stupidly high, food tainted with clenbuterol wouldn't cause "food poisoning" in the traditional sense in the same way that the added vitamins/minerals to your breakfast cereal doesn't cause food poisoning.

    And according to the report the levels were very low.
  • cajun_cyclist
    cajun_cyclist Posts: 493
    edited September 2010
    This should ring a bell with you all... you know why it jumps out a little is because the Radio Shack rider Fuyu Li, maybe from China, tested for this right before the tour, this last one.

    http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/3902/ ... terol.aspx

    A coincidence!? By itself, I'd say Clenbuterol gets some use by bodybuilders, I looked it up once, it's like a steroid or something, they may inject cattle with it too.

    It calls to mind an expression I once heard:

    'Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.' George Santayana.
  • deal
    deal Posts: 857
    Presumably all the other Astana riders tested positive also since they almost certainly ate the same meals...

    anyway some quotes from Victor Conte talking about this drug
    “It has faster clearance than any of the anabolic steroids, and it's an anabolic substance,”

    “It will accelerate healing and tissue. It could also be used as a stimulant but would more likely be used between events to enhance recovery.

    ps. US swimmer Jessica Hardy got a 1 year ban for 'low levels' of clenbuterol.
  • Brilliant just what cycling needs :roll:
  • Although this puts the quantity in perspective,innocent I say.

    http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-con ... estigation
  • alp777
    alp777 Posts: 211
    Clenbuterol: What is it?

    Often used to treat breathing disorders such as asthma, clenbuterol is an organic compound that mimics the effects of the sympathetic nervous system. The drug, classed as a beta-2 agonist, has short term effects similar to stimulant ephedrine, as it increases heart rate, temperature, perspiration and blood pressure.

    Clinical tests on rodents have shown the stimulant has the effect of increasing muscle mass, however studies have not been conducted to measure impact or safety of human use. Long term use of the drug in rodent studies has proven to have a negative impact on the heart, with the heart increasing in size as collagen fibres penetrate the heart wall, which is believed to reduce cardiac output and believed to cause cardiac arrhythmias over time.

    In some circles it’s commonly used as a ‘fat burning’ weight loss drug, however there’s little in the way of clinical evidence to support this theory.

    Clenbuterol food contamination is rare however not without precedent, with Radioshack’s Li Fuyu claiming his positive test for the substance earlier in the season was due to contamination. There have been cases reported in both China and the United States of America where clenbuterol has passed into human’s bodies after eating meat from animals that have consumed the drug in order to produce a lean cut.
  • Clembuterol in España , over 300 commentarios at the Marca!

    http://www.marca.com/2010/09/30/ciclism ... 02253.html

    I see, there are those who take an affront to this as in a Nationalistic sense of which I have seen first hand... Then, :wink: you've got your Cynical types as you always see about the whole manner and a cliche by one respondent, "If this is true, I will never watch cycling again." People really are the same about everywhere and behave the same way. Then you've got responses that nothing will happen. Curious situation. Oh and one person saying "Enhorabuena", in good time, Schleck will be declared the winner.

    You know, it is these stories that really grip people's interest in cycling, sadly.


    Offtopic: But Spain related.
    Indurain, I was reading today, he could take in so much oxygen (8 liters a breath or something vs. 4 for normal people) and for the 2nd time in print I have read his lungs were so big it would push his stomach out. Maybe he was the real deal with steady progress.
  • dave_1
    dave_1 Posts: 9,512
    The low picogram/nanogram level could indicate small doses on purpose rather than food contamination. What is typical level of intoxication in the general population from eating meet? If it is common then fair enough...but if he is one in a million...??????????
  • Gazzaputt
    Gazzaputt Posts: 3,227
    What a surprise I think not.

    Agree with Dave_1
  • guinea
    guinea Posts: 1,177
    Quick, make this thread about Lance.

    It's FF I feel sorry for...
  • deal
    deal Posts: 857
    guinea wrote:
    Quick, make this thread about Lance.

    "Contador has a lot to learn"
    guinea wrote:
    It's FF I feel sorry for...

    :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
  • Gazzaputt
    Gazzaputt Posts: 3,227
    I cannot wait for FF to post the defence for Contador.
  • I feel sick.

    I bet Bjarne feels sicker.
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    If the amount was so low ("400 times less than what WADA must be able to detect"), why is he suspended?
  • Enjoy. Want to place bets on how pages this will run to.

    "The experts consulted so far have agreed also that this is a food contamination case, especially considering the number of tests passed by Alberto Contador during the Tour de France, making it possible to define precisely both the time the emergence of the substance as the tiny amount detected, ruling out any other source or intentionality."

    Tiny = 0,000 000 000 05 grams per ml

    All I can say is I am impressed the doping authorities have equipment good enough to detect levels this miniscule.
    Contador is the Greatest
  • Not good timing this close to the worlds. But is anyone truly surprised?
  • Not good timing this close to the worlds. But is anyone truly surprised?

    Not surprised, but disappointed.
    Warning No formatter is installed for the format
  • Pokerface
    Pokerface Posts: 7,960
    I predict right now that Contador will slide on this. Levels are way too low.
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    Contamination of meat? Yes it's possible but Contador would have had to have eaten illegally imported meat from the US. Because the European Union bans the use of hormones in cattle rearing and also bans all US beef because American farmers "dope" their beef.

    So it's possible but the chain of events required to contaminate the meat is quite long, ie someone trying to sneak beef illegally into the French market; American beef isn't cheap in the first place so importers have little incentive here.

    More likely is some kind of food supplement was contaminated... or a cynic would apply Occam's Razor and point out that we have a pro cyclist doping.

    Regardless, this is a disaster for the sport, a disaster for the Tour de France and Riis must be pulling his hair out, if he can find any.

    Bjarne_Riis_190703c.jpg
  • deal
    deal Posts: 857
    This drug is banned in American beef also.

    Btw according to Wada rules, strict liability means that how the substance got into the athlete is not relevent - a doping offence has been commited and he should lose his tour win. How the substance got into his system is only considered when deciding on punishment.

    Jessica Hardy proved contaminated supplements caused her positive, got a 1 year ban. British hurdler Callum Priestley used the contaminated meat defence and got two years.
  • sh!ty sh!ty bum bum

    :cry:
  • RichN95 wrote:
    Still, the UCI never catch the big names, do they? They're protected, right?
    The only person for whom there is evidence indicating that the UCI have 'protected' him is Armstrong...
  • Brian B
    Brian B Posts: 2,071
    Enjoy. Want to place bets on how pages this will run to.

    "The experts consulted so far have agreed also that this is a food contamination case, especially considering the number of tests passed by Alberto Contador during the Tour de France, making it possible to define precisely both the time the emergence of the substance as the tiny amount detected, ruling out any other source or intentionality."

    Tiny = 0,000 000 000 05 grams per ml

    All I can say is I am impressed the doping authorities have equipment good enough to detect levels this miniscule.

    Yes if lab results at my wrok are anything to go by this level could just be noise on the instrument.
    Brian B.
  • Kléber wrote:
    ...a cynic would apply Occam's Razor and point out that we have a pro cyclist doping.
    That would be the most rational course of action. :wink:
  • Kléber
    Kléber Posts: 6,842
    Kléber wrote:
    ...a cynic would apply Occam's Razor and point out that we have a pro cyclist doping.
    That would be the most rational course of action. :wink:
    Quite, and especially since we have a rider with breating difficulties because of allergies and clenbuterol's used in lung inhalers.

    But it doesn't make it so. Contador could pay the price for media cynicism with sport.
  • samiam
    samiam Posts: 227
    Of course he did it. Especially in a tour where Schleck pushed him all the way.

    A terrible, terrible day for cycling. :(
  • Yes if lab results at my wrok are anything to go by this level could just be noise on the instrument.

    In which case the "b" sample would be likely to be clear, which it wasn't.