Alberto Contador handed two-year ban for doping offence

[danielf]

I know that doping is rife in cycling. I also know that many forms of doping are very hard to spot, and as a result riders are taken out of competition for things like having elevated hematocrit values.

It's just that the evidence in this case isn't very compelling when there are many cases of athletes inadvertently ingesting clenbuterol. I'm all for cleaning up the sport, but it seems that Contador is just being used to set an example.

Originally Posted by denphone

Look l respect your opinion but l disagree with you on Contador as yes there have been quite a few cases of Clenbuterol found in some sportsmen but as we have seen in professional cycling that there have been many high profile cyclists found guilty of taking drugs in the last 10 years and as the old saying goes there is usually no smoke without fire and Contador is just one of many l believe that have been found out taking performance enhancing drugs.

Whoah - hold on there, horsey!

The problem with making sweeping statements like that, is that they can be re-applied to other groups of people.

For instance, I believe that there may be some fraud by some benefits claimants, but according to your statement above, I should be thinking that way about most benefits claimants*.

*I don't, and I won't.

[denphone]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Whoah - hold on there, horsey!

The problem with making sweeping statements like that, is that they can be re-applied to other groups of people.

For instance, I believe that there may be some fraud by some benefits claimants, but according to your statement above, I should be thinking that way about most benefits claimants*.

*I don't, and I won't.

Steady on there as l said that there has been many cases of Professional cyclists found taking banned performance enhancing drugs and many people within professional cycling know that this goes on and yet cycling tends to deny that it has never had widespread doping and yet we seem to have rider after rider being found guilty lately and that just confirms that there is still a serious problem in the sport and also what has this to do with benefit claimants as that is a totally different subject altogether.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by denphone

Steady on there as l said that there has been many cases of Professional cyclists found taking banned performance enhancing drugs and many people within professional cycling know that this goes on and yet cycling tends to deny that it has never had widespread doping and yet we seem to have rider after rider being found guilty lately and that just confirms that there is still a serious problem in the sport and also this has nothing to do with benefit claimants as that is a totally different subject altogether.

No-one is denying there's a serious problem with doping in cycling (and few would argue that it doesn't need cleaning up). But it seems that we now have a situation where people do or don't get banned for a positive test based on the location where the test took place. If you test positive for Clenbuterol in Mexico or China it's OK as those are 'high risk' areas where meat regularly contains Clenbuterol. If you test positive for traces in Spain, you get a 2 year ban, as meat shouldn't contain Clenbuterol. This isn't right.