For those of you who don't like reading about doping in cycling, please move on. The NY Times is reporting tonight that Alberto Contador failed a second test during this year's Tour de France. This one has nothing to do with clenbuterol and any tainted meat, but instead a newly designed test can now check for the presence of plasticizers, a chemical found inside IV bags. Essentially, it is a way to see if athletes are having anything transfused into their system.
According to the NY Times, one of Contador's tests on July 20 contained the high levels of plasticizers, at an amount apparently 8 times higher than the level thought to be associated with doping. The very next day was the one where Contador's sample contained the very minute concentrations of clenbuterol (well below the expected therapeutic concentrations). Contador's camp blames the presence of this minute amount of clenbuterol on some sort of accidental ingestion, while other media and doping experts have suggested that the amounts of clenbuterol might have due to with blood transfusions. Anyhow, the story keeps going, and now the NY Times is leading the charge...we'll have to wait to see what the UCI and Alberto Contador say next.
More soon...
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