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The head of cycling’s world governing body refused to comment on Friday on the provisional suspension of three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador for a doping violation.
Pat McQuaid, who attended the UCI Congress meeting in a Melbourne hotel, told The Associated Press he was “completely limited” in what he could say, so “I’m saying nothing.”
Contador has been provisionally suspended after a World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Germany found a “very small concentration” of the banned substance clenbuterol in his urine sample taken on July 21 at the Tour.
The Spanish rider said on Thursday that contaminated meat must have caused the positive result and called the UCI’s suspension of him “a true mistake.”
Both Contador’s A and B samples tested positive, and the cyclist and a UCI statement released Thursday gave no indication of whether the Spanish rider will be stripped of his latest Tour title or be banned.
The UCI statement said the case required further scientific investigation before any conclusion could be drawn.
McQuaid said he had every confidence in the investigative process.
“It’s an independent process,” he said. “The UCI are working closely with WADA and we wait until we get to the process.”
Meanwhile, a spokesman for Alberto Contador denies the three-time Tour de France winner’s positive drug test stemmed from blood doping.
The French sports daily L’Equipe reported on Friday that a German lab that found a tiny amount of the drug clenbuterol in Contador’s urine sample also found plastic residues of the kind that might turn up after a blood transfusion.
German television station ARD also reported that plastic traces were detected.
Contador spokesman Jacinto Vidarte tells The Associated Press that the Spanish rider “categorically denies having a blood transfusion.”
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