Unfortunately there hasn't been a clean rider in the top 10 of a GT for decades and there's rarely a case as deep as 50 placing’s, even if probably 90-95% of the peloton isn't riding on bread and water alone.
None of us likes doping, yet we still follow the sport. Why? Because we are hypocrites? No, because we don't feel we should be denied something we enjoy that doping should have no right to withhold from us. Each then is free to choose which doper he finds exciting to watch, whose athletic gestures drag him into the passionate world that only this sport, doped or not, knows how to create for its tifosi.
Now personally I like AC's style and his unquestionable athletic prowess. The things he's done over the years have been displays of a greatness and innate talent that only very few giants of the sport in the past were capable of demonstrating - and I'm talking about the greatest here, Coppi, Merckx, Hinault (and yes, they all doped too) - which doping itself has not bestowed upon him. For this reason I can't see anybody else but he that won those GT's, which were stripped from him, even if the record books now don't say so. At the same time, on the human side, Alberto has always responded with grace in the interviews I've read and heard from Italy, complimenting his rivals while he generally projects a likeableness that is rare in champions of his caliber. Most of this, I've gotten the sensation, hasn't reached the Anglo-US fan base for reasons, in the latter case, that are hardly surprising: to not talk up someone who touches, let alone, surpasses the greatness of Lance. On the other hand the Italians admire him as if he were one of their own, which is striking because so rare in the sport scene here.
Obviously this was not the case with Armstrong, and I couldn't be more satisfied than seeing a bully get his just due. Note so much because he was a doper, but because he was a bully and a doper. This is a critical distinction. The Contador persona has never attempted to undermine rivals, intimidate the rebellious, squash the competition during the month of July. Just win wherever his immense talent has offered him a chance, practically from March to September. He rides with passion and instinct, whereas Lance was all logic and calculation. The one human, the other robotic. Yet as far as LA's wins go, cancelling them from the record books doesn't eliminate them for those who bore witness to their acts.
Sure, I'd like to close my eyes and wake up with a cycling that's 100% clean. The reality, though, is that one learns to live with it under the most paradoxical of circumstances. At least so far. What may come of the future, is another story.