Posted: October 16th, 2010 - 6:15pm
Source: Cycling News

Two anti-doping experts have given Tour de France winner Alberto Contador little hope that his argument that contaminated meat was the cause of his Clenbuterol positive will be accepted. The substance was detected at low levels in a sample taken from the Spaniard during the Tour's second rest day, and he has been suspended by the UCI pending the outcome of an investigation. He stands to lose his third Tour title and be suspended from competition.
Detlef Thieme, director of the Institute of Doping Analysis and biochemistry in Kreischa, Germany said that Contador's case bears little comparison to that of table tennis player Dimitrij Ovcharov, who was cleared of a Clenbuterol doping offense after succesfully arguing the positive resulted from contaminated food.
Thieme told the dpa that the case of Ovcharov, who tested positive after a table tennis tournament in China, was different from Contador's because the German-Ukrainian was able to prove that other people who ate the same food in China also showed traces of Clenbuterol and a hair test looking for historical traces of the drug in the athlete's system proved negative.
None of Contador's teammates, who shared in a special meal during the Tour which included beef brought in from Spain, were tested.