[Xela]

Maybe the biggest surprise is that ESPN.com posted the story before Velonews or Pezcyclingnews.

http://espn.go.com/olympics/cycling...o-contador-stripped-2010-tour-de-france-title

I knew no matter the outcome today, it was going to be sad either way for the sport. My biggest problem with the whole thing was the length of time this took, and the fact that he was still be allowed to race. A positive test is a positive test. The only way to start to clean-up the sport is severe and immediate punishment.

So, A. Schleck is now a TdF champion and Scarponi wins the Giro. Not quite the same, though.

 

[Hazy]

Andy Schleck has made a new fan today after I read his response to the Contador fiasco.A classy response to a competitor's mess.

I copied and pasted this from Bicycling Magazine post on facebook

Andy Schleck on today's decision by CAS to suspend Alberto Contador for two years: “There is no reason to be happy now. First of all I feel sad for Alberto. I always believed in his innocence. This is just a very sad day for cycling. The only positive news is that there is a verdict after 566 days of uncertainty. We can finally move on.... If now I am declared overall winner of the 2010 Tour de France it will not make me happy. I battled with Contador in that race and I lost. My goal is to win the Tour de France in a sportive way, being the best of all competitors, not in court. If I succeed this year, I will consider it as my first Tour victory.”

 

[Xela]

Yeah, quite classy, especially since that was the year of the "stomach of anger" chain-drop.

 

[Poolie]

I was impressed with Andy Schleck's comments. No competitor likes to win that way.

 

[Duende54]

Definitely impressed with a number of comments that are coming to light as the day moves on in Europe. After the shutdown of Lancegate last week and the ruling on Contador it should be an interesting week in cycling. Maybe now we can just race? I highly doubt that we have seen the last of the dopers unfortunately as there will always be those who think they can get passed the system.

 

[qmsdc15]

"I battled with Contador in that race and I lost."

It sounds like Andy cheats too. I think they all do. A clean rider who was beaten by a cheater wouldn't be so classy in his comments. He would have felt cheated and he would now feel vindicated.

Instead he feels bad that Albert got caught and punished? Really!? OK...

A classy comment would be "Gee, I hope I don't get caught too!"

But how much class can we expect from competitors in a sport based on lies?

 

[Noel]

I am sure that Schleck is not going to be pleased to "win" his first Tour in this fashion. And as for how long this process took, this quote from CAS gives some kind of indication of the byzantine workings of these courts "The Panel found that there were no established facts that would elevate the possibility of meat contamination to an event that could have occurred on a balance of probabilities," CAS said. What ?

 

[rola643]

For your reading pleasure

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/55837108/SentenciaContador20120206.pdf