The official contador's verdict details discussion thread

[Parrulo]

ok mister foromite lawyers its time for you guys to work your magic and summarize the verdict for us silly guys that don't know the ways of the law.

is there any possibility of an appealing on contador's part?

p.s. please don't spam this thread with cheers or cries and let it mostly for serious discussion on the verdict

http://www.tas-cas.org/d2wfiles/document/5648/5048/0/FINAL20AWARD202012.02.06.pdf

 

[LaFlorecita]

I want to know could they appeal on the grounds that CAS are saying that it wasnt necessarily doping but a contaminated food supplement.

Yeah I'm wondering about that too. Seems weird, doping highly unlikely, just as contaminated meat, but a contaminated supplement is most likely, so let's just ban him...

 

[Benotti69]

Apparently the grounds for appeal can only be on procedure.

I imagine in the length of time it took to consider this they have thought long and hard about it.

Unless they were taking the time to leave a loophole for a procedural appeal to be taken and get Contador off the hook.

Hardly CAS have not been seen to work like that previously.

I think Contador got lucky and will be back in 6 months and only Armstrong fans will remember his ban.

 

[roundabout]

Im no lawyer but to me there seems to be some grounds to appeal on this issue alone. I wonder will Contador`s people see some loophole to exploit here. What they are really saying is that he gets a 2 year ban but they are not sure that he doped. Thats my taking on it.

No, read para 493 of the decision where it is explained why it's a 2-year ban.

 

[thehog]

Im no lawyer but to me there seems to be some grounds to appeal on this issue alone. I wonder will Contador`s people see some loophole to exploit here. What they are really saying is that he gets a 2 year ban but they are not sure that he doped. Thats my taking on it.

There is no waiver on the ban length. Its 2 years or nothing. CAS had to apply 2 years they had no choice in the scope of the rules. If found guilty of doping then you get 2 years. Regardless of the method of ingestion. There’s no sliding scale for level of guilt. That’s just the emotional side within us who suggest that he’s been unlucky and can he only be banned for 6 months. Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that.

The Swiss court would more than likely overturn the decision as they can apply EU and local law whereas CAS could only apply the UCI rules.

 

[python]

i requested this thread as a place to discuss (preferably ONLY) the technical and legal evidence that compelled the panel to pass the verdict they did.

in one of my posts in the parallel threads I pointed out to a previously absolutely crucial unknown detail - according to cas ruling item

1ug/ml of clen was found in berts blood on 20 july - a day before the aaf for clen in his urine.

this finding was the result of wada request for additional testing. important: not intended by the uci !

the fact that the panel still found the blood transfusion less likely than the supplement contamination, speaks volumes about the controversy of testing bert was exposed to. more to follow...

 

[RownhamHill]

I want to know what anyone else who's read the full verdict thinks is going on?! Having read the sections on each of the three competing arguments (meat, transfusion, food supplement) I was kind of following the first and second bits, but when it gets to the food supplement section what the hell happens?

To summarise (crudely) the panel gets to the point where they've considered meat and transfusion and decided while both are possible, both are very unlikely, so then consider food supplement. They look at the evidence submitted from Contador which seems to be:

Contador only took supplements provided by Astana, supplements which were manufactured by firms that never handled clenbuterol in any aspect of their manufacturing operations, and supplements that have been taken by the entire team throughout 2010 and 2011 without any other team members testing positive. Contador uses this evidence to argue that it can't be food supplement contamination - an argument that WADA's laywers appear to concur with and they don't submit their own arguments (if I'm reading right!).

So, from the evidence as a starting point the panel appears to conclude that:

- some American woman once had clenbuterol in her food supplement;
- and while Contador's supplements were different and manufactured by a different firm entirely, he might have been lying about this, and might have taken a supplement not supplied by his team - even though there's no evidence to suggest this happened, or any logical reason for him to do so (as if he wanted a particular supplement you'd imagine he'd get the doctor's approval ahead of time?) - and that supplement might have been contaminated like the American woman's was; or he might have been telling the truth but there might have just been some rogue contamination of the specific supplement Contador took that day (despite providing no mechanism for how clenbuterol contamination could happen when it's produced by a manufacturer with nothing to do with clenbuterol)
- so therefore food supplement contamination is the most likely explanation. Two year ban please, next case.

Am I missing something here?

Having read the judgement I have no idea what happened in reality - but got to say the food contamination angle seems the least likely of the three explanations given.

 

[meat puppet]

Let me just say that I'll be very pleased to read analyses of the documents, Python and others. Appreciate your contributions. Haven't got the time myself at the moment, but I will probably skim thru the whole paper too.

As of now, I have only read the short one. To me it seems that it was composed in a rather elliptical manner precisely in order to please all the parties concerned. Even Contador himself, re: the form of the ban. The supplement, then, functions as a bunny outta the hat. And my impression is that in so doing it allows for Bert's re-entrance into the peloton without too much friction. In other words the verdict is thus phrased, that it allows for the UCI, WADA, and ASO to dodge the doping questions when AC comes back. According to the short one, if a bit of wordplay is okay here, he effectively got a doping sanction without the doping part (ie. at least his intention was swiped under the rug).

Maybe it does leave AC's team some room to appeal but my take is that that was the best bargain they could get.

Perhaps my impression is totally astray and even contradicted by the whole verdict, but that is how I read the thing. And no, I don't pretend to be a lawyer or anything. It was just the elliptical formulations that the supplement theory allows that caught my eye.

 

[L'arriviste]

I want to know what anyone else who's read the full verdict thinks is going on?! Having read the sections on each of the three competing arguments (meat, transfusion, food supplement) I was kind of following the first and second bits, but when it gets to the food supplement section what the hell happens?

To summarise (crudely) the panel gets to the point where they've considered meat and transfusion and decided while both are possible, both are very unlikely, so then consider food supplement. They look at the evidence submitted from Contador which seems to be:

Contador only took supplements provided by Astana, supplements which were manufactured by firms that never handled clenbuterol in any aspect of their manufacturing operations, and supplements that have been taken by the entire team throughout 2010 and 2011 without any other team members testing positive. Contador uses this evidence to argue that it can't be food supplement contamination - an argument that WADA's laywers appear to concur with and they don't submit their own arguments (if I'm reading right!).

So, from the evidence as a starting point the panel appears to conclude that:

- some American woman once had clenbuterol in her food supplement;
- and while Contador's supplements were different and manufactured by a different firm entirely, he might have been lying about this, and might have taken a supplement not supplied by his team - even though there's no evidence to suggest this happened, or any logical reason for him to do so (as if he wanted a particular supplement you'd imagine he'd get the doctor's approval ahead of time?) - and that supplement might have been contaminated like the American woman's was; or he might have been telling the truth but there might have just been some rogue contamination of the specific supplement Contador took that day (despite providing no mechanism for how clenbuterol contamination could happen when it's produced by a manufacturer with nothing to do with clenbuterol)
- so therefore food supplement contamination is the most likely explanation. Two year ban please, next case.

Am I missing something here?

Having read the judgement I have no idea what happened in reality - but got to say the food contamination angle seems the least likely of the three explanations given.

Don't really post on CN forum now but I'll say this:

CAS concluded that food supplement contamination is more likely than the other possibilities, though still not a big possibility.

In the judgement, the panel spent most of the record resolving the intense battlegrounds (transfusion vs. meat contamination), hence the apparent weighting of the presentation.

Food supplement contamination is therefore (slightly) more possible (WADA accepted it as a possibility, Contador's counsel did not) from a list of supplements being used by Contador (details not published) as made available by José Marti. This based on past cases and prevalence and quality testing etc.

Acceptance of this latter possibility refutes the RFEC's acceptance of the Contador argument on the grounds of high probability of meat contamination and gives rise to the WADA strict liability rule which entails the upholding of a two-year sentence.

That might be brutalising things a bit, but I think that's essentially it.

 

[thirteen]

i requested this thread as a place to discuss (preferably ONLY) the technical and legal evidence that compelled the panel to pass the verdict they did.

python, you posted a link to the PDF of the ruling in the other thread... can i request that you link it here as well?

 

[RownhamHill]

Food supplement contamination is therefore (slightly) more possible (WADA accepted it as a possibility, Contador's counsel did not) from a list of supplements being used by Contador (details not published) as made available by José Marti. This based on past cases and prevalence and quality testing etc.

Thanks for the response, and yes I get what they concluded - I've just no idea how they came to conclude it! From what I could read (and I only read it once through, so I'm not claiming I didn't miss something!) there doesn't seem to be any evidence that they point to to support their conclusion - other than it happened to someone once so it could happen again. As I said have I missed something?

 

[The Hitch]

1ug/ml of clen was found in berts blood on 20 july - a day before the aaf for clen in his urine.

On which day did he claim to eat the steak, on 20th or 21st? Does this catch him lying?

 

[Paco_P]

Yeah I'm wondering about that too. Seems weird, doping highly unlikely, just as contaminated meat, but a contaminated supplement is most likely, so let's just ban him...

See page 53 of the ruling. Here's the summary:

1. It is not disputed that Contador tested positive for a banned substance.
2. According to the rules, to avoid a ban Contador has to do two things:
a. prove how the banned substance got in his body
b. prove that it was not his fault, or through his negligence, that it got there.

The ruling accepts neither the contaminated meat theory nor the blood transfusion theory and offers the alternative theory so as to have something there, but it seems to me (not being a lawyer) that the alternative theory is not really necessary, since Contador failed to do a. and b. above to anyone's satisfaction.

The ruling is really laughably badly written, at least if you compare it to what real judges write, and hardly convincing, but none of that changes two things:
1. Anyone with a brain knows Contador was doping
2. He got caught.

 

[LaFlorecita]

On which day did he claim to eat the steak, on 20th or 21st? Does this catch him lying?

20, 21, 22. If I'm correct.

 

[Publicus]

On which day did he claim to eat the steak, on 20th or 21st? Does this catch him lying?

He ate the steak on the 20th and 21st.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Let me just say that I'll be very pleased to read analyses of the documents, Python and others. Appreciate your contributions. Haven't got the time myself at the moment, but I will probably skim thru the whole paper too.

As of now, I have only read the short one. To me it seems that it was composed in a rather elliptical manner precisely in order to please all the parties concerned. Even Contador himself, re: the form of the ban. The supplement, then, functions as a bunny outta the hat. And my impression is that in so doing it allows for Bert's re-entrance into the peloton without too much friction. In other words the verdict is thus phrased, that it allows for the UCI, WADA, and ASO to dodge the doping questions when AC comes back. According to the short one, if a bit of wordplay is okay here, he effectively got a doping sanction without the doping part (ie. at least his intention was swiped under the rug).

Maybe it does leave AC's team some room to appeal but my take is that that was the best bargain they could get.

Perhaps my impression is totally astray and even contradicted by the whole verdict, but that is how I read the thing. And no, I don't pretend to be a lawyer or anything. It was just the elliptical formulations that the supplement theory allows that caught my eye.

+1000 on this. I really value the technical opinions too.

The follow-on testing on samples the day before will get lost in the bigger story though. That should be a huge story on its own.

The WADA tests on AAF - 1 day samples suggests a couple of possibilities:
-WADA testing is wildly variable depending on the lab. This has already been established in other research. As has the suspicions of a large, but unspecified number of false negatives. Some of the false negative is by design, thanks to the IOC/UCI.
-Only some tests are run on the athlete samples on any given day at the TdF.
Thoughts? Opinion?

 

[hfer07]

worst weekend ever -sporting wise: LA walks away with impunity, the Pats lost the Superbowl & just when I thought of a fresh start for this week- I get brought down by the CAS ruling on Alberto's case ............

this is BS

 

[Suedehead]

python, you posted a link to the PDF of the ruling in the other thread... can i request that you link it here as well?

http://www.tas-cas.org/d2wfiles/document/5648/5048/0/FINAL20AWARD202012.02.06.pdf

 

[Walkman]

1ug/ml of clen was found in berts blood on 20 july - a day before the aaf for clen in his urine.

On which day did he claim to eat the steak, on 20th or 21st? Does this catch him lying?

He ate the steak on the 20th and 21st.

It would be nice if UCI/WADA could release testing protocole from the 20th so that we could find out when (at what time) AC was tested. If is was directly after the race finish or later in the evning. I mean, if he was tested at the finish how could the meat story check out unless he had meat for breakfast?

 

[LaFlorecita]

It would be nice if UCI/WADA could release testing protocole from the 20th so that we could find out when (at what time) AC was tested. If is was directly after the race finish or later in the evning. I mean, if he was tested at the finish how could the meat story check out unless he had meat for breakfast?

I would think WADA has already checked on that.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

+1000 on this. I really value the technical opinions too.

The follow-on testing on samples the day before will get lost in the bigger story though. That should be a huge story on its own.

The WADA tests on AAF - 1 day samples suggests a couple of possibilities:
-WADA testing is wildly variable depending on the lab. This has already been established in other research. As has the suspicions of a large, but unspecified number of false negatives. Some of the false negative is by design, thanks to the IOC/UCI.
-Only some tests are run on the athlete samples on any given day at the TdF.
Thoughts? Opinion?

I thought about this. I may have missed details in the report, but:

The Cologne Lab (where the first positive was found) was especially sensitive for Clen testing. (I read this a long time ago, and can find a source shortly). If the previous days samples were tested in different locations, the small amount may not have been detected in other labs, but may have been detected in the retesting of those samples in a different lab? It is not clear where the July 20th, 22 and 24th day samples were tested the first time, or the second time.

EDIT: for that source :From SportsScientists, A summary of This article : "article includes links to Contador's response (by Douwe de Boer), and the details of the testing and when Contador tested positive. It describes how the level of Clenbuterol in Contador's blood was so low that very few laboratories in the world would have detected it - as it transpired, the samples were sent to Cologne, which is able to detect levels at least 40 times LOWER than the amount required in order for a test to be declared an "adverse analytical finding".

On this note, what is interesting is how few samples were sent to Cologne in the first place. Most of the Tour samples were sent to Lausanne, except 10 (out of 250). The Cologne lab is one of the only laboratories able to detect a number of substances at low levels, and so failing to use them when they had the option raises a few interesting questions. As it transpired, Contador's samples were among the 10 analysed there - this is not surprising given that he'd have been tested as the race leader every day."

 

[The Hitch]

He ate the steak on the 20th and 21st.

So does the clen in blood on the 20th mean something?

It would be nice if UCI/WADA could release testing protocole from the 20th so that we could find out when (at what time) AC was tested. If is was directly after the race finish or later in the evning. I mean, if he was tested at the finish how could the meat story check out unless he had meat for breakfast?

VIno eats meat for breakfast, maybe he gave Contador a taste.

 

[hrotha]

Weird, after reading the whole report I can't help but think a blood transfusion couldn't have caused the clen positive, but that at the same time it plausibly happened. Now, this could be a case of blood transfusion + contaminated food supplement, but I find it more hilarious if it was blood transfusion + contaminated meat.

1ug/ml of clen was found in berts blood on 20 july - a day before the aaf for clen in his urine.

On the morning of the 20th July, at that. But Contador had the meat for lunch. But that must be a typo for the morning of the 21st, right? Because when discussing the scientific possibility of a transfusion, they don't mention the 20th again, except to say that sample didn't have any clen.

 

[mastersracer]

I was initially skeptical of the tainted supplement scenario until I read the USADA ruling on Jessica Hardy, who tested positive for clen and had her suspension reduced to one year based on a contaminated supplement. She had 4 ng/ml vs. Contador's 50 pg/ml. Her supplement had only traces of clen, but the scenario of ingestion to create a positive test out of three total tests (during Olympic trials) was seen as plausible although the amount of supplement needed to get to 4 ng/ml was questioned. In Contador's case, that would be much more plausible. That said, the blood contamination sections are the most interesting, particularly as the probabilities depend on whose experts you believe and what appears to be a favorable cherry picking of expert testimony.

 

[python]

On which day did he claim to eat the steak, on 20th or 21st? Does this catch him lying?

the official documents (RFEC, and de Boer report) indicate him eating the meat twice - on the evening of the 20th and the 21st. so, i do not see any evidence of lying as the cas item 16 indicates blood test in the morning (probably around 7am as is usual for blood passport)

20, 21, 22. If I'm correct.

only 2 documentated instances of the meat consumption - 20th and 21st..

It would be nice if UCI/WADA could release testing protocole from the 20th so that we could find out when (at what time) AC was tested. If is was directly after the race finish or later in the evning. i mean, if he was tested at the finish how could the meat story check out unless he had meat for breakfast?

as i noted above, it was a morning blood test for blood passport. as far as i know, there are no wada-validated BLOOD tests for clen. however, it is easy to test blood matrix for clen and wada asked for the test during the proceedings.

So does the clen in blood on the 20th mean something?

since cas apparently considered the transfusion less likely than a supplement contamination, they are likely considering blood clen on the 20th a sign of contamination unknown to bert…a weird supposition if you ask me for which i did not find any hard evidence presented by either side.