AP Interview: Contador calls on samples to be frozen until technology proves he won Tour clean

AP Interview: Contador wants samples to be frozen

PINTO, Spain — Three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador challenged cycling authorities on Saturday to freeze his urine and blood samples until technology can show he rode clean in this year’s race and disprove his positive test for clenbuterol.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Contador stuck to his story that contaminated meat is the cause of his positive test on July 21 for the fat-burning and muscle-building drug.

“I can tell you I am not a scientist but I can also tell you that all my urine and all my blood samples are in the lab, and I call for them to be analyzed as many times as necessary to clear up this case,” Contador said. “If it is necessary to freeze either my urine or my blood samples so that five years from now, when the system has been further perfected, it can be analyzed, I authorize this.”

Blood and urine samples taken for drug tests during the Olympics are routinely stored for up to eight years so they can be retested as newer doping-detection technology emerges.

During the Tour, the samples are given to cycling’s governing body. But the UCI is not obliged to freeze them, although it has that option.

Contador was provisionally suspended by the UCI on Thursday after a small amount of clenbuterol was discovered in his urine sample by a laboratory in Cologne, Germany.

The same lab also found plastic residues that might turn up after a transfusion of blood from a plastic bag, according to news reports in France and Germany.

Contador said he hasn’t been informed of any such find, and vehemently denies any suggestions he underwent a transfusion with his own blood to receive an energy boost before a grueling mountain stage on July 22.

As the Tour leader, Contador said he underwent tests of his blood and urine eight times in the last week of the race — a frequency he describes as unprecedented in cycling history.

WADA director-general David Howman says any positive test containing only trace amounts of a banned substance should still be taken seriously.

“(Just because) a small amount is detected, it doesn’t mean you weren’t cheating,” Howman said from the Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

Eating meat on a cycling rest day is unusual, and Spanish health authorities say clenbuterol cannot be used on animals destined for human consumption. It is sometimes used illegally to speed up growth and increase muscle mass in chickens, cattle and pigs.

Contador said he understands it might be difficult for his story to be accepted in a sport tainted by doping scandals, but insists it is the truth.

“There will be people who believe it more, who have more trust, and others who believe it less,” Contador said in the 15-minute interview from his hometown of Pinto, outside Madrid.

Contador wished he had a sample of the beef he ate on July 20 and July 21 so the presence of clenbuterol could be proven.

“Boy, do I wish I had a piece of that meat so it could analyzed in a laboratory with the level of precision of the one in Cologne,” Contador said. “That is now something that is totally impossible to prove.”

AP Sports Writers John Leicester and Samuel Petrequin in Paris contributed to this report.