CONTADOR VOWED TO RETURN TO CYCLING

Contador found guilty of doping

Three-times Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has been banned from racing for two years and stripped of his most recent title after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) found him guilty of a doping offense at the 2010 event. Contador's ban is effective from August 5, 2010, when he was provisionally suspended after being informed of the positive test, leaving him free to return to competition on August 5, 2012.

As well as losing his 2010 Tour de France win, which will now be handed to Luxembourg's Andy Schleck, Contador will also forfeit his 2011 Giro d'Italia triumph, which goes to Michele Scarponi.

Contador has always maintained the traces of clenbuterol, a banned steroid used illegally to fatten livestock, entered his bloodstream via contaminated meat bought from a butcher in the Basque Country. The Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) accepted Contador's version of events and in February 2011 cleared him and lifted his suspension.

The International Cycling Union (ICU) and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) appealed the case to the CAS returning its verdict, which effectively rules Contador out of this year's Tour de France and the London Olympics.

"The panel found there were no established facts that would elevate the possibility of meat contamination to an event that could have occurred on a balance of probabilities. Unlike certain other countries, notably outside Europe, Spain is not known to have a contamination problem with clenbuterol in meat. Furthermore, no other cases of athletes having tested positive to clenbuterol allegedly in the consumption of Spanish meat are known," the CAS said in a statement.

"The panel concluded that both the meat contamination scenario and the blood transfusion scenario were, in theory, possible explanations for the adverse analytical findings but were, however, equally unlikely.

In an emotional appearance in front of the television cameras, Alberto Contador on Tuesday vowed to return to cycling:

"I am going to continue fully in cycling," the Madrid-born racer said. "I will continue to compete cleanly, as I have done all my life." Describing the past year-and-a-half since the positive test became known as "a nightmare," Contador declined to comment on whether his sanction was the result of a witch hunt.