Kelly: “Maybe there’s more information we don’t know about”
Ireland’s former world No. 1 and current director of the An Post team, Sean Kelly has expressed surprise at the length of the Alberto Contador ban adding he thought the Spaniard may not have been banned at all.
Kelly has suggested that given the small levels of clenbuterol found in Contador’s system during the 2010 Tour de France, the ban imposed on him last week was “very heavy”.
“I’m very surprised that Alberto got two years,” he said.
“When you study the information that we have, I think it would be hard to suspend him for more than six months to a year, if at all. But two years for such an amount of the substance is very heavy.”
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However, he added it was possible that there was further information about the case that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) had at its disposal to inform its decision but which had not yet emerged publicly.
“Perhaps more information will be made public, but from the information at our disposal today, I find two years to be very heavy.”
Contador was last week banned from racing for two years. The ban is retrospective. It means it applies from August 2010, resulting in him being stripped of all of his results since then.
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However, the retrospective nature means the Spaniard will be free to race again this August, resulting in him escaping being out of competition for two years.
When two-year bans were introduced it was done as an extreme punishment designed to make it either impossible or very difficult for riders who test positive to return to the sport quickly and at a high level.
Kelly’s reaction follows comments from UCI president Pat McQuaid last week who said the case was a “sad” one for cycling.
McQuaid pointed out it was the UCI who took the case to CAS to appeal the Spanish cycling federation’s initial decision not to ban the rider at all.
However, he said despite CAS upholding the UCI’s view – that Contador should be banned – the verdict was not a source of triumph for him or the UCI.
“This is a sad day for our sport,” he was quoted as saying in a statement released by the UCI.
“Some may think of it as a victory, but that is not at all the case. There are no winners when it comes to the issue of doping: every case, irrespective of its characteristics, is always a case too many.”
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