Three-times Tour de France champion Alberto Contador would have been crazy to risk taking the anabolic agent clenbuterol during this year’s race, a leading British sports lawyer said on Thursday.
The Spaniard has been provisionally suspended by the International Cycling Union after testing positive for a small amount of the performance-enhancing drug during this year’s race.
Contador’s assertion that he ingested the substance from tainted beef was dismissed by World Anti-Doping Agency director general David Howman.
However, Mike Morgan, who has represented major National Olympic Committees at the past two Olympic Games and appeared before the Court of Arbitration for Sport, said it was possible that contaminated meat had been responsible.
“The fact that it’s such a small amount does corroborate his claim that it came from contaminated meat,” Morgan said in an interview during a sports law conference convened by the World Sports Law Report. “If you are going to take clenbuterol to have any lasting effect you would have taken a much higher amount than was detected in his sample.”
Morgan said if a rider was going to take clenbuterol to enhance his performance he would be unlikely to do so in the middle of the Tour de France when he knew he was going to be tested every other day.
“It stays in your system for as long as three weeks, even more,” he said. “It’s just not a chance you would take. It wouldn’t make any sense, it would be crazy.”
Morgan said that clenbuterol, which strips fat and builds muscle in humans, had been used in farming communities around the world for the same reason.
“It is used to promote the growth rate in cattle, pigs and chicken. By stripping away the fat of the animal, clenbuterol also increases the leanness of the meat,” he said. “The fact that it may be banned does not mean farmers are not using it. It’s an issue which anti-doping authorities know very little about and about which they should educate themselves.”
Morgan said he believed the spate of recent clenbuterol positives was due to a very sensitive test and said anti-doping authorities needed to devise a test which showed if the drug had been deliberately ingested.
“I don’t believe it has suddenly become popular among athletes, I don’t also believe it is suddenly being used more in the farming industry,” he said.
“It is possible that athletes cheat, of course they do, but is it possible that it’s come from milk, or beef, or pork, or water in an extreme case?” Morgan asked.
“That’s the difficulty. And proving it, for athletes, is a real difficulty,” he said.
‘SOURCE OF PRIDE’: Newspapers rushed out special editions and the government sent their congratulations as Shohei Ohtani became the first player to enter the 50-50 club Japan reacted with incredulity and pride yesterday after Shohei Ohtani became the first player in Major League Baseball to record 50 home runs and 50 stolen bases in a single season. The Los Angeles Dodgers star from Japan made history with a seventh-inning homer in a 20-4 victory over the Marlins in Miami. “We would like to congratulate him from the bottom of our heart,” top government spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters in Tokyo. “We sincerely hope Mr Ohtani, who has already accomplished feat after feat and carved out a new era, will thrive further,” he added. The landmark achievement dominated Japanese morning news
When Wang Tao ran away from home aged 17 to become a professional wrestler, he knew it would be a hard slog to succeed in China’s passionate but underdeveloped scene. Years later, he has endured family disapproval, countless side gigs and thousands of hours of brutal training to become China’s “Belt and Road Champion” — but the struggle is far from over. Despite a promising potential domestic market, the Chinese pro wrestling community has been battling for recognition and financial stability for decades. “I have done all kinds of jobs [on the side]... Because in the end, it is very
No team in the CPBL can surpass the Taipei Dome attendance record set by the CTBC Brothers, except when the Brothers team up with Taiwanese rock band Mayday. A record-high 40,000 fans turned out at the indoor baseball venue on Saturday for Brothers veteran Chou Szu-chi’s first farewell game, which was followed by a mini post-game concert featuring Mayday. This broke the previous CPBL record of 34,506 set by the Brothers in early last month, when K-pop singer Hyuna performed after the game, and the dome’s overall record of 37,890 set in early March, which featured the Brothers and the
Olympic bronze medalist Lee Meng-yuan has become the first Taiwanese athlete to top the International Shooting Sport Federation’s (ISSF) men’s skeet world rankings, while top Taiwanese shooters won golds in each of yesterday’s finals in Taoyuan. Lee’s 6,610 points put him ahead of fellow men’s skeet medalists from the Paris Olympics Americans Vincent Hancock and Conner Prince. Lee on Monday said that he was surprised by the result, although he had expected his ranking to rise after the Games, which was also the first time a Taiwanese athlete had competed in men’s skeet. Despite topping the rankings, Lee said he believed Hancock, who