Alberto Contador smiled, waved and ignored the boos and whistles that greeted his appearance at the teams’ presentation for the 2011 Tour de France yesterday.
The 28-year-old from Pinto, Spain, risks becoming the most unpopular champion of the race in its long history, should he successfully defend his title this month.
Contador, also booed last year after he attacked when the chain of Andy Schleck, his rival, dropped off during a key mountain stage, can expect more of the same along the length of this year’s route, according to a recent poll among the French public.
The poll found that 63 per cent of French fans want the Spaniard to stay away from this year’s Tour, pending the outcome of the deliberations of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) early next month.
Contador’s continuing doping case, initially thrown out by the Spanish cycling federation, will be heard by CAS between August 1 and 3, only one week after the Tour ends. If CAS rules against him, Contador stands to lose every victory since his positive test for clenbuterol last July. This would include the 2010 Tour, the 2011 Giro d’Italia and, hypothetically, this year’s Tour.
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Contador dismissed the prospect of being stripped of his titles as “completely ridiculous” yesterday. “I am the most tested rider in the peloton,” the Spaniard said. “Few others are as tested as me and I will be one of the most controlled in the Tour, so I am confident about the outcome of the hearings.”
In yesterday’s tightly controlled press conference, during which Contador was shielded by his team and by the Tour organisation, only one cynic was able to question him directly on his attitude to doping.
Refuting the suggestion that there was any ambivalence in his past statements on doping, Contador stated: “I have always been 100 per cent anti-doping, always been zero tolerance. But everybody is free to think what they want.”
Bjarne Riis, Contador’s team manager, who is wearied perhaps by his own chequered past — the Dane admitted to doping himself to victory in 1996 — made a sustained plea for both press and public to give his team leader a fair ride.
“Everybody would have loved to have had a solution [to the case] before the Tour, but it hasn’t happened,” Riis said. “We have to respect the system as it is. If you don’t believe he has the right to be here, you should question the system.
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“I don’t see why he should be punished or suspended. We don’t think that’s fair, so I beg you all to understand that we want to concentrate on the race.”
However, it was Contador’s own legal team who requested a delay to the CAS hearing, originally timetabled for this month. That rescheduling allowed Contador to start the Tour, coincidentally at a time when Riis is seeking continued sponsorship for 2012.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) issued a statement last month, saying: “The UCI asks that we respect Alberto Contador’s right to be treated the same way as every other rider who takes the start of the Tour de France. The prestige of the event warrants it, and the dignity of all the athletes demands it.”
Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), admitted that the Spaniard’s participation “will cast a question mark on the validity of the result until the verdict is rendered — but there is a presumption of innocence”.
Contador is growing used to attracting controversy. He was booed by spectators during the Giro d’Italia last month after he was deemed to have campaigned for a particularly dangerous mountain descent to be removed from the race schedule. “I heard the boos but, overall, people have been applauding me during this Giro,” he said.
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Schleck, the potential beneficiary of a CAS ruling against Contador next month, fuelled the “Bertie-bashing” yesterday by criticising his rival, not for his ethics but for his sportsmanship.
Mulling over last year’s infamous attack, made as Schleck was left stranded at the roadside, the Luxembourger said: “I wouldn’t have done that. A great champion doesn’t do a thing like that.”
It was a manoeuvre that cost Schleck the race lead. “Contador said he didn’t see it,” Schleck added. “But he looked over his shoulder and then he attacked. When [Lance] Armstrong crashed [during the 2003 Tour], the other riders agreed to wait for him. That’s what makes a champion. I was really very disappointed by Contador’s attitude that day.
“The next day, he came to say he was sorry. I told him in English: ‘I forgive but I don’t forget’. I think that he understood.”
Schleck’s sentiments echo those of the majority of the Tour-watching public. However, if Contador goes on to win this year’s Tour, only to be convicted of doping a week later, he is unlikely ever to be forgiven.
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The champions they love to hate
Lance versus France Mutual loathing characterised much of Lance Armstrong’s reign over the Tour. From his first attempts at halting French, to the doping allegations made against him and his lack of interest in the traditions of the Tour, it was never a comfortable relationship.
Jacques Anquetil Despite saying that the best way to prepare for a race was with “a good pheasant, champagne and a woman”, five-times winner Anquetil was disliked by romantics for his pragmatic demeanour. His eternal second, compatriot Raymond Poulidor, was always the more popular of the pair.
The Cannibal Eddy Merckx’s dominance of cycling in the early Seventies — hence the nickname — fuelled simmering resentment against him. That boiled over on the Puy de Dôme in 1975 when Merckx was punched in the back by an angry spectator. He never won the Tour again.