When Alberto Contador touched down at Turin’s Caselle airport three days before the 2011 Giro d’Italia, it must have felt like arriving in something of a safe-haven in the midst of a decidedly turbulent period. Since news of his positive test for clenbuterol at the 2010 Tour de France had broken the previous September, Contador’s had been a nebulous existence. After a lengthy delay, the Spanish Cycling Federation opted to clear him of wrongdoing in February, only for the UCI and WADA to appeal the matter to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
In the meantime, Contador was free to race, but victories at the Volta ao Algarve and Volta a Catalunya couldn’t mask the sense that he was competing on borrowed time nor distract from the absurdity of the situation. Indeed, two months later, after a further delay from CAS allowed him to race, Contador would be roundly booed by fans at the presentation of the Tour de France at Le Puy du Fou, but in Italy in May, he received a rather more amenable reception.
After winning in 2008 when his Astana team was shunned by the Tour, Contador had developed a particular affinity with the Giro. Now as he made his way through arrivals in Turin, Contador was flagged down by a camera crew from La Gazzetta dello Sport, not to face questions on the bizarre prospect of riding – and winning – the Giro sub judice, but to talk about a comparison that had been between him and Moto GP star Valentino Rossi.
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Earlier in the week, Giro director Angelo Zomegnan performed considerable mental gymnastics in praising RCS Sport for blocking riders implicated in the Mantova doping investigation from the race – Alessandro Ballan, Mauro Santambrogio and Marco Bandiera were among those to miss out – while at the same time defending Contador’s presence.
“Not all organisers adopt the same rigour that has been put in action by RCS. Some organisers are out of control and don’t maintain a constant line of behaviour,” Zomegnan told Tuttosport, before adding of Contador: “At this point, the only judgement passed on the Spaniard ruled that he is innocent.”
Contador, in fact, had struck a deal with RCS Sport to ride the Giro over than a year previously, at the 2010 Liège-Bastogne-Liège, though as the corsa rosa approached, Zomegnan was careful to insist that, as a WorldTour team, Saxo Bank were invited anyway and that it was up to Bjarne Riis – and the anti-doping authorities – whether Contador rode or not.
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