Steakgate latest: Contador positive for Clenbuterol in four different tests

[Benotti69]

Wow i had no idea veal blood was used and by an Austrian company as well. does the word "WIENERSCHNITZEL" mean anything to you

Baby calves would actually be prone to Clen use because that is veal. Raised in crates and confined spaces they need help for muscle growth as continued feeding without exercise leads to fat deposits. This is actually one of the only plausible uses(still illegal) for clen in cattle. A limited mobility animal does not gain muscle at the same rate as other cattle. More fat, less meat. Most cattle opposite problem, lots of muscle, less fat.

this just gets more interesting

if our meat was contaminated with clen would we not see less obesity amongst the population or are the levels too minute to have any effect on humans.

 

[hrotha]

The blog brings up actovegin because it uses parts of the animal where traces of clenbuterol could remain for up to a year. One of the holes in Contador's steak theory was that a farmer who used clenbuterol would wait at least 15 days after using it before sacrificing the animal, as the clen would work during those two weeks and it'd be a waste otherwise, and that would explain why virtually no contaminated meat is found in the controls, but if actovegin was indeed to blame that wouldn't be an obstacle.

That said, this theory seems to make things needlessly complicated. It might be possible, and it's certainly interesting, but it's probably less likely than the transfusion theory.

 

[runninboy]

if our meat was contaminated with clen would we not see less obesity amongst the population or are the levels too minute to have any effect on humans.

I don't know the answer. as i posted earlier on another thread my family is in the business and i had never heard of Clenbuterol until AC tested positive. Then i only know what i was able to google. And it is funny when i first went through the searches months ago certain info came up. Now the search results are totally different. For instance originally i could only find people who got sick from contaminated liver. Now one of the first pages cites 60 people who had non liver contaminated consumption.
Anyway when checked the farm/cattle websites i found the theory of Clen use ridiculed.Basically because it is not as effective as legal implants. The legal implants release small amounts of hormones over a long period of time and they are legal and leave much less residue than Clenbuterol.

I really have gotten an education because my family doesn't do any of this. Each breed of cattle has their advantages and disadvantages so you kind of get tunnel vision keeping up with what is best for your herd. We have angus and their biggest problem is pink eye, not fat deposits , not rate of gain, nothing that we would want an implant for.

So my best guessscenario is there is not much clen used in the cattle industry as there are better and legal alternatives.
However i can now see that veal producers might be tempted.
Just another reason to avoid veal...

 

[runninboy]

The blog brings up actovegin because it uses parts of the animal where traces of clenbuterol could remain for up to a year. One of the holes in Contador's steak theory was that a farmer who used clenbuterol would wait at least 15 days after using it before sacrificing the animal, as the clen would work during those two weeks and it'd be a waste otherwise, and that would explain why virtually no contaminated meat is found in the controls, but if actovegin was indeed to blame that wouldn't be an obstacle.

That said, this theory seems to make things needlessly complicated. It might be possible, and it's certainly interesting, but it's probably less likely than the transfusion theory.

Well now the only thing is how rigourously do they test for veal in Spain?
Aside from the actovegin theory if it was actually veal that AC consumed and if they don't test the veal maybe AC was being truthful.
I didnt want to go down this road before but Clen while unethical and illegal would have significant benefits to raising hogs & veal.

 

[Benotti69]

Well now the only thing is how rigourously do they test for veal in Spain?
Aside from the actovegin theory if it was actually veal that AC consumed and if they don't test the veal maybe AC was being truthful.
I didnt want to go down this road before but Clen while unethical and illegal would have significant benefits to raising hogs & veal.

what the realities of farmers using clen is i haven't got a clue. we see how corrupt sport is in, society why not farming?

 

[sniper]

AC is reaching new levels of denial.

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/04022011/47/tour-francia-contador-saca-defensa.html

 

[runninboy]

what the realities of farmers using clen is i haven't got a clue. we see how corrupt sport is in, society why not farming?

IME farmers are not farmers for fame or fortune. There is no adulation. It is a different type of personality. By and large farming has existed on an honor system for quite awhile. That is always what bothered me when people would use the phrase
"Because i can"
This always grated on me because most people in farming made choices not for personal gain but for greater ideals that sometimes run counter to their immediate interests.
Case in point my parents farm, we have a large area of old oak trees. We have been approached a couple times by people in the lumber industry who want to harvest our trees. It would make more financial sense to do so. We would have more money from the lumber, farmland is much more valuable than timber, and we would have more pasture still with a few select trees to be beneficial and allow us to increase the size of our herd.
Basically it would make us more efficient.
However we realize that these trees have been there for hundreds of years, we hate to kill them for profit when their beauty is irreplaceable in our eyes. We know other people enjoy seeing them and so we refrain from harvesting them.
My family and other farmers question the use of drugs and other "profitable" practices as something we don't know the consequences of in exchange for little reward. It is more the individual mindset of the people who get involved in farming.
Cattle farming especially resists investment from large corporations because of the nature of the business. Large capital investment with too little opportunity for short term recovery of said investment.
You get one calf a year, they need alot of land to roam, and alot of good grass.
By contrast hog farmers can grow their operation quickly as one hog can have 18 pigs a year vs one calf for cattle producers.
Also hogs can be confined in great numbers thousands of animals can be produced in a building that sits on an acre. We use four acres per cow .
So our profitability comes over decades of doing business and is mostly tied to the increase in land value vs the profitability of the product.
No corporation uses a business plan to recoup investment in 30 years but farmers do.
that is why rules of society are not always applicable to those who choose to be farmers

 

[Benotti69]

IME farmers are not farmers for fame or fortune. There is no adulation. It is a different type of personality. By and large farming has existed on an honor system for quite awhile. That is always what bothered me when people would use the phrase
"Because i can"
This always grated on me because most people in farming made choices not for personal gain but for greater ideals that sometimes run counter to their immediate interests.
Case in point my parents farm, we have a large area of old oak trees. We have been approached a couple times by people in the lumber industry who want to harvest our trees. It would make more financial sense to do so. We would have more money from the lumber, farmland is much more valuable than timber, and we would have more pasture still with a few select trees to be beneficial and allow us to increase the size of our herd.
Basically it would make us more efficient.
However we realize that these trees have been there for hundreds of years, we hate to kill them for profit when their beauty is irreplaceable in our eyes. We know other people enjoy seeing them and so we refrain from harvesting them.
My family and other farmers question the use of drugs and other "profitable" practices as something we don't know the consequences of in exchange for little reward. It is more the individual mindset of the people who get involved in farming.
Cattle farming especially resists investment from large corporations because of the nature of the business. Large capital investment with too little opportunity for short term recovery of said investment.
You get one calf a year, they need alot of land to roam, and alot of good grass.
By contrast hog farmers can grow their operation quickly as one hog can have 18 pigs a year vs one calf for cattle producers.
Also hogs can be confined in great numbers thousands of animals can be produced in a building that sits on an acre. We use four acres per cow .
So our profitability comes over decades of doing business and is mostly tied to the increase in land value vs the profitability of the product.
No corporation uses a business plan to recoup investment in 30 years but farmers do.
that is why rules of society are not always applicable to those who choose to be farmers

i am glad to learn that there are people who value things for more than they are worth in a monetary sense.

I have very little knowledge of farming so also happy to hear that they are not representative of the immediate profit demands modern business society makes to the detriment of others.

 

[Beech Mtn]

Contador's team appears to be having trouble identifying which calf he ate

(Article is in Spanish - link is courtesy of The Swordsman)

 

[python]

Contador's team appears to be having trouble identifying which calf he ate

(Article is in Spanish - link is courtesy of The Swordsman)

can someone with the spanish better than googletranslate interpet this sentence..i found it as interesting as confusing. something about going to the farm and trying to test the source of 'clenbuteroled' steak ?

Llegamos hasta la res, pero el problema es que el número de ganado que nos dieron, era un solomillo de tres kilos y 232 gramos, y dijeron que ese solomillo no pertenecía a ese ternero, porque los que mataba el ganadero eran terneros de unos 300 kilos, de los que sale un solomillo de unos dos kilos y medio".

 

[hrotha]

can someone with the spanish better than googletranslate interpet this sentence..i found it as interesting as confusing. something about going to the farm and trying to test the source of 'clenbuteroled' steak ?

"We got to the animal, but the problem is the cattle number they gave us corresponded to a 3.232-kilo steak and they said that steak couldn't belong to that calf [i.e. the one identified by the number they were given], because the ones the farmer kills are ~300-kilo calves, from which you get a ~2.5-kilo steak"

 

[hrotha]

can someone with the spanish better than googletranslate interpet this sentence..i found it as interesting as confusing. something about going to the farm and trying to test the source of 'clenbuteroled' steak ?

"We got to the animal, but the problem is the cattle number they gave us, it was a 3.232-kilo steak, and they said that steak couldn't belong to that calf [i.e. the one identified by the number they were given], because the ones the farmer kills are ~300-kilo calves, from which you get a ~2.5-kilo steak"

It's confusing because apparently it's completely unedited, oral language, and Contador changes the construction mid-sentence. It fooled me at first and I posted a somewhat wrong translation.

 

[Parrulo]

can someone with the spanish better than googletranslate interpet this sentence..i found it as interesting as confusing. something about going to the farm and trying to test the source of 'clenbuteroled' steak ?

well its hard to explain cus the subject isn't that easy to understand. anyway from what i can understand they say that they found the farmer(ganadero) but they got the wrong meat. something like the farmer sent cows with less then 1 year and around 300 kilos to the slaughter house to get a solomillo(meat from a specific part of the cow) of around 2.2 kg. but the solomillo they found had 3.3 kg which means it was an older and heavier cow so not the right meat.

that sentence isn't really well written to be honest. and i haven't been reading many articles on this lately(just been waiting for the decision)

i hope helped a bit =/

 

[python]

"It's confusing because apparently it's completely unedited, oral language, and Contador changes the construction mid-sentence. It fooled me at first and I posted a somewhat wrong translation.

i hope helped a bit =/

muchas gracias, señores !

i actually needed both of your inputs to make sense of the contador statement.

i then interpreted it a bit further and filled in blanks with some previously known names, facts, dates and circumstances. now, if contador’s spokesman was prepared to speak on the issue, it should have sounded something like this…

‘because of the eu trading laws, the 3. 232 kilogram ‘solomillo’ steak purchased in irun by cerrón at the request of astana chef Paco Olalla, was traceable through a purchase receipt cerron previously submitted to astana officials. (not in the text: that’s the vacuum packed ‘solomillo’ steak prepared by paco in the team bus kitchen and consumed by contador and his 4 Spanish team mates on the 20th july)..‘so, we thought we identified the very animal that donated the contaminated steak, but the farmer told us that could not be the case because the ‘solomillo’ steak he typically cut out of the carcass of his 300-kilo calves (and retailed in irun butcher shop) would normally weigh 2.5 kilogram.’

is this significant ?

hard to say but it opens contador to two risks.

One is the consistency/inconsistency of his story is now open to corroboration by others who could be brought under oath (and the risk of perjury) if the ‘spanish novitzkys’ bother to investigate the potential fraud. Two, it puts onus now on the butcher shop in irun - either they dealt in the illegal meat supply or contador lies and can be sued by the shop. again, spanish novizkys, under the pressure from the bask farmers, may get curious.

either way, contador would have to construct an enormously complicated scheme, to get everyman lie in his favour ?

 

[Parrulo]

tbh the spanish always stay together and love their champions(even alonso who is a full total d*ck) so i doubt any1 in spain would try to hurt the defense of their best cyclist

i can be wrong tho but thats what it looks like from looking across the border here(i am from a town on the border btw portugal and spain)

 

[hrotha]

tbh the spanish always stay together and love their champions(even alonso who is a full total d*ck) so i doubt any1 in spain would try to hurt the defense of their best cyclist

i can be wrong tho but thats what it looks like from looking across the border here(i am from a town on the border btw portugal and spain)

That's not entirely accurate. Alonso is a pretty divisive figure in Spain, lots of people hate his guts, although most like him. Contador is also somewhat divisive, but not nearly as much.

 

[Parrulo]

That's not entirely accurate. Alonso is a pretty divisive figure in Spain, lots of people hate his guts, although most like him. Contador is also somewhat divisive, but not nearly as much.

the thing is even if they don't like alonso(or contador but alonso is indeed hated by a few) they will always support him against anything not spanish. thats how the spanish are.

 

[runninboy]

"We got to the animal, but the problem is the cattle number they gave us, it was a 3.232-kilo steak, and they said that steak couldn't belong to that calf [i.e. the one identified by the number they were given], because the ones the farmer kills are ~300-kilo calves, from which you get a ~2.5-kilo steak"

It's confusing because apparently it's completely unedited, oral language, and Contador changes the construction mid-sentence. It fooled me at first and I posted a somewhat wrong translation.

I am trying to apply what i know from US beef production to Spain. A 3.2 Kilo steak would be about 7 lbs, obviously we dont cut them the same way. a 300 kilo calf is about 650 lbs that is a little on the large size for a calf that we sell but ours are sold in Oct and born in march.
However anything under a year old would have a similar taste & texture to veal, die to its age.Maybe the meat they are referring to is a version of veal. If it is I might owe AC and apology.
Crap i really wanted to be a hater
Seriously though a 650 lb calf will dress out to maybe a few hundred pounds of meat. If it is a speciality meat it might be plausible and if it is a limited mobility animal, which is also plausible if they are butchering at a young age then someone who is not interested in the general publics health ir the law might be prone to dope said animal.
Not as effective again, but maybe more available to the farmer.
This also could be the lawyers digging deep to create a sceneario, what they put forth originally made little sense, if they have refined it by switching the story to veal it throws a wrench into the works.
However he still has the burden of proof and that cannot be satsified only speculation as to plausability.

OK never mind solomillo is the type of cut=sirloin
still that is a pretty small animal to butcher, you would go broke in the US trying to sell that size to a processor. Not enough meat and too small of cuts...

 

[Porphyry]

I am trying to apply what i know from US beef production to Spain. A 3.2 Kilo steak would be about 7 lbs, obviously we dont cut them the same way. a 300 kilo calf is about 650 lbs that is a little on the large size for a calf that we sell but ours are sold in Oct and born in march.
However anything under a year old would have a similar taste & texture to veal, die to its age.Maybe the meat they are referring to is a version of veal. If it is I might owe AC and apology.
QUOTE]

The meat was identified as veal, or veal tenderloin - solomillo de ternera - since the beginning of the story, it just isn't always referred to that specifically.

Benjamin Noval told La Nueva España in an article from October 7: "It was tender white veal tenderloin, not aged. It wasn’t from a steer; instead it was from young calf. It was very buttery and I remember that we commented that you didn’t need a knife because it could be cut with the blunt side."

 

[frenchfry]

I am trying to apply what i know from US beef production to Spain. A 3.2 Kilo steak would be about 7 lbs, obviously we dont cut them the same way. a 300 kilo calf is about 650 lbs that is a little on the large size for a calf that we sell but ours are sold in Oct and born in march.
However anything under a year old would have a similar taste & texture to veal, die to its age.Maybe the meat they are referring to is a version of veal. If it is I might owe AC and apology.
QUOTE]

The meat was identified as veal, or veal tenderloin - solomillo de ternera - since the beginning of the story, it just isn't always referred to that specifically.

Benjamin Noval told La Nueva España in an article from October 7: "It was tender white veal tenderloin, not aged. It wasn’t from a steer; instead it was from young calf. It was very buttery and I remember that we commented that you didn’t need a knife because it could be cut with the blunt side."

Is that the same Benjamin Noval that towed the peloton around France for weeks on end in the service of Lancey-poo?

I like his credibility.

 

[python]

Is that the same Benjamin Noval that towed the peloton around France for weeks on end in the service of Lancey-poo?

I like his credibility.

i hear ya, but it's very easy to confirm if the purchased meat was indeed of solomillo variety or as someone identified it in common english - veal tenderloin. there were at least 7 people who should be able to corroborate. even one of them recollecting differently would throw a monkey wrench into the contador story.

as i posed earlier, are all these people prepared to lie on contador's behalf ?

let's see...the 4 dinner teammates, paco-the-cook and cerrón-the-buddy are all spaniards and could all conceivably be holding out for contador. But the seller, the non-spanish (bask) butcher store owner of the alleged veal tenderloin, who as i referred above is now under a suspicion of illegal trading, would he be willing to lie, (..forge the receipt etc) under oath and the risk of perjury on contador's behalf when his own head is likely to hang off the meat hook ?

i dont know spanish traditions but where i grew up it would definitely be highly unlikely.

 

[fcojavier]

half ?

let's see...the 4 dinner teammates, paco-the-cook and cerrón-the-buddy are all spaniards and could all conceivably be holding out for contador. But the seller, the non-spanish (bask) butcher store owner of the alleged veal tenderloin, who as i referred above is now under a suspicion of illegal trading, would he be willing to lie, (..forge the receipt etc) under oath and the risk of perjury on contador's behalf when his own head is likely to hang off the meat hook ?

i dont know spanish traditions but where i grew up it would definitely be highly unlikely.

I also think it would be highly unlike that people from Irún (Basque Country / Spain) would lie for someone from Madrid.

The story is easy to confirm ...or not. Many people unrelated to lie.

 

[Porphyry]

i hear ya, but it's very easy to confirm if the purchased meat was indeed of solomillo variety or as someone identified it in common english - veal tenderloin. there were at least 7 people who should be able to corroborate. even one of them recollecting differently would throw a monkey wrench into the contador story.

as i posed earlier, are all these people prepared to lie on contador's behalf ?

let's see...the 4 dinner teammates, paco-the-cook and cerrón-the-buddy are all spaniards and could all conceivably be holding out for contador. But the seller, the non-spanish (bask) butcher store owner of the alleged veal tenderloin, who as i referred above is now under a suspicion of illegal trading, would he be willing to lie, (..forge the receipt etc) under oath and the risk of perjury on contador's behalf when his own head is likely to hang off the meat hook ?

i dont know spanish traditions but where i grew up it would definitely be highly unlikely.

Ternera is veal.

The "solomillo" part is just a particular cut from the carcass of the calf that was butchered for veal--the ternderloin, from which various sub-cuts can be taken, such as filet mignon. Different regions have different names for these.

 

[hrotha]

Yeah. I used "steak" in my translation in a deliberate attempt to dumb it down by using the word most commonly associated with this case, but it's definitely veal tenderloin.

 

[Porphyry]

I've always been a bit perplexed at why the English-speaking press dropped the specific i.d. of the meat as veal, but for US sources it probably has to do with the fact that in the USA the public knows very little about veal and it is almost never eaten. They know even less about veal production.