I just gave the Juliet Macur article about Contador and plasticizers another read to refresh my memory. It doesn't state that it was a person from the Cologne lab leaking the info, just a person who apparently has no integrity:
So yeah, a person gives their word to keep information secret, then rushes to the phone to share the information with the world. I hate people like that in all walks of life - politics or whatever. Did they plan to keep the promise at the time they made it, or did they lie to get the information and then betray the trust? The only thing they're able to keep confidential is their own name?
But the big sentence of the story is kind of buried.
People claim that the existence of the plasticizers proves that the Clenbuterol was not from contamination, but he had used it on purpose previously, stored blood, and absolutely positively transfused on the rest day.
But the alleged high plasticizer level was on July 20, a day the urine sample showed no Clenbuterol whatsoever. If what so many people believe is true, the plasticizer level would have been more on the 20th than the 50 picograms found on the 21st. Yet there was zero. If anything, it makes a stronger case that the Clenbuterol, which is the only thing named in the doping case, was from contamination, and that if there was transfused blood, it showed no evidence of prior consumption of Clenbuterol.
The current case is about Clenbuterol. Period. Plasticizers can't be used as supporting evidence because they don't exist in a sample with Clenbuterol. At this point no one can make the plasticizers the bigger part of the story, because the test isn't approved. I've said elsewhere that Contador has given carte blanche in the media to have his samples stored until the plasticizer test is perfected and approved, a big step since the UCI didn't bother to store Tour samples more than three months. If someone wants to make a case for that in the future, so be it.
But the alleged transfusion and plasticizers were July 20, a day with no Clenbuterol. July 21 had the 50 picograms of Clenbuterol, and no mention of plasticizers. That makes them completely independent of each other. And no amount of forum chat, or anger towards a cyclist and those who defend him as innocent until proved guilty, can merge those two together in a court of law.
So, why isn't there Clenbuterol in the sample with the plasticizers?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/05/sports/cycling/05cycling.html?ref=juliet_macur
Happy 28th birthday, Alberto.