Alberto Contador

Cyclist

• Born: December 6, 1982
• Place of Birth: Pinto, Madrid, Spain

Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador is the winner of the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France. He is considered to be among the world’s best stage racers and cycling climbers. Contador is one of only a handful of cyclists to have won the Triple Crown of cycling, which consists of the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the Vuelta a España. He has also made headlines for his rivalry with American cyclist Lance Armstrong, especially after Contador’s 2009 Tour de France win. In spite of the press fueling the rivalry, Contador has earned the respect of his peers for his ability to overcome a frightening medical condition to become one of cycling’s most successful climbers.

Early Life

Alberto Contador Velasco was born on December 6, 1982, in Pinto, Madrid, Spain. The third of four children, he has two brothers and a sister. His younger brother, Raúl, suffers from cerebral palsy. Contador played soccer when he was young and began cycling at age fourteen. By the age of fifteen, he was involved in amateur cycling and joined Madrid’s Real Velo Club Portillo.

Despite not yet winning any races, Contador gained a reputation as a strong climber in Spain. As a fifteen-year-old, he reached second place in standings in the Spanish amateur circuit, earning the nickname "Pantani" after another great cycling climber, Marco Pantani. When he was sixteen, Contador left school to focus exclusively on cycling. He signed with the Iberdrola-Loinaz team and won his first victory in 2002 in a Spanish time trial.

European Professional Cycling

In the world of professional cycling, there are several kinds of races. The most famous cycling race, the Tour de France, takes place over the course of twenty-three days, with each day considered a "stage" of the race. Stages may involve a simple race among all riders, a race involving a hill or mountain ascent, an individual timed race against the clock, or a team time trial where the combined times of the first five team members determine that stage’s winning team. The Tour de France also has two rest days.

Cycling teams, which are usually sponsored by a corporation and invited to participate, compete for the victory. Within these teams, cyclists and coaches strategize to facilitate the team leader’s win. The winner is the one with the lowest combined time at the end of the tour. There are also classification prizes for the winners of various stages, so cyclists can win individual stages of the race (some of which are particularly grueling, such as a mountain ascent). It is also possible to win the overall tour without winning an individual stage.

Professional Career

In 2003, Contador joined ONCE-Eroski, a Spanish cycling team led by Manolo Saiz, who also led the Iberdrola-Loinaz team. That season, Contador won a time-trial stage at the Tour de Pologne (Poland).

In 2004, while riding in the Vuelta a Asturias (Astrias, Spain), Contador fell from his bike and went into convulsions. According to reports, he had been feeling unwell and had experienced headaches leading up to the race. After undergoing tests, Contador was diagnosed with a cerebral cavernous malformation of the brain, characterized by lesions filled with stagnant blood. The condition required surgery, and Contador withdrew from competition during recovery.

Contador recovered in 2005 and returned to racing and to the ONCE team, now called Liberty Seguros (and later called the Liberty Seguros-Würth team). He won on his first time out, taking the Queen stage at Australia’s Tour Down Under. After his 2009 victory at the Tour de France, Contador recalled that Australian victory, claiming that it was the most significant in his life, as it proved to him that he could once again compete as a professional cyclist.

Operación Puerto Doping Case

Contador continued to win stages at several other races in Spain and Switzerland as he prepared for the Tour de France. In May 2006, a scandal erupted in the European cycling circuit when Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes was accused of administering performance-enhancing drugs to more than two hundred athletes in the fields of football (soccer), tennis, and cycling. The case, commonly referred to as the Operación Puerto doping case, involved a significant number of cyclists suspected of doping. Contador, as a member of the Liberty Seguros-Würth team, was among those under suspicion; the team’s manager, Manolo Saiz, had been arrested in connection with doping and was also suspected. (He resigned as manager.) Upon investigation, Fuentes was accused not only of administering performance-enhancing drugs but also of a practice known as blood doping, which involves withdrawing blood from athletes, separating the plasma from the red blood cells, and injecting the athletes with those red blood cells to help them improve their stamina prior to a race.

Shortly after, Liberty Mutual withdrew its support of the Liberty Seguros-Würth team, leaving the German manufacturing company Würth as the team's only remaining sponsor. The team had appealed their exclusion from the 2006 Tour de France, but only those riders not implicated in the doping scandal were allowed to participate. Because they did not have enough remaining riders to field a team, they did not participate in that race. Würth pulled its support from the team, and the sponsor became Astana, a group out of Kazakhstan. At the end of July, Contador and four of his teammates were cleared of charges by the governing body, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI). In his return race, the Vuelta a Burgos, he crashed after stage four of the race.

In 2007, Contador signed with the Discovery Channel team. He won his first victory with that team at the 2007 Paris–Nice race, where a successful climb helped him secure the win. In that year’s Tour de France, Contador was running a close second to Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen when Rasmussen was removed from the race for lying about his pre-race whereabouts. Contador won the race in a close finish. Nevertheless, the Discovery Channel decided to forgo future participation in cycling, and the team disbanded. Contador returned to the Astana team in 2008.

In February 2008, Astana was barred from participating in the Tour de France because of the team’s previous association with doping, in spite of the fact that most of the organization and riders had not worked for the team during the doping scandal. This left Contador unable to defend his victory from the previous year. He did participate in the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España, however, winning both. With these two victories, Contador had won the Triple Crown of cycling (the Tour de France, the Giro d'Italia, and the Vuelta a España), succeeding where few other riders had.

Rivals & Victors

In 2009, American cyclist Lance Armstrong, winner of the Tour de France for seven consecutive years, announced that he would return to cycling and would compete in the 2009 Tour de France. Armstrong had strong ties to the Astana team manager, Johan Bruyneel, and Bruyneel insisted that Armstrong join his organization. Many considered this a difficult situation for the team, because only one member of the team could win the overall race with the support of his team members, and Contador had been the team leader prior to Armstrong joining the team. Following the addition of Armstrong, Contador indicated that he would leave the Astana team, claiming that he was at a point in his career that warranted a lead position without having to fight for it. However, Contador was under contract with Astana through 2010.

Contador’s initial performance in the spring of 2009 was spotty, finishing fourth at the Paris–Nice race and third at the Dauphiné Libéré. At the Tour de France, he won stage fifteen, then went on to win stage seventeen and a time trial. He entered the final stage of the race with a lead of about four minutes. In the final leg of the race, Contador beat second-place cyclist Andy Schleck by four minutes and eleven seconds and Armstrong by five minutes and twenty-four seconds. Following Contador’s victory, both Armstrong and Contador made statements about one another that garnered much attention by the press. Contador stated clearly that he had no interest in working with Armstrong in the future, and Armstrong expressed similar feelings.

After the race, American cyclist Greg LeMond, a former three-time winner of the Tour de France, questioned Contador’s ascent of the slopes in the Verbier stage, a significant and challenging climb, in an article in the newspaper Le Monde. According to LeMond, Contador’s performance was unheard of and would have required a maximal oxygen uptake, or VO₂ max, that had never been seen in another athlete. Other cycling experts and physiologists disputed LeMond's calculations. Given cycling’s recent history of doping and Contador’s association with the scandal, LeMond requested that Contador’s VO₂ levels be tested. Contador publicly denied the allegations.

In 2010, Contador again won the Tour de France, although his victory was shadowed by some controversy stemming from an incident during stage fifteen of the race, when he took advantage of then-front-runner Schleck's slipped chain to pull ahead and gain a thirty-nine-second lead. While doing so is not against Tour de France regulations, it is generally accepted that competitors should allow each other a chance to catch up following a crash, a mechanical fault, or some other form of bad luck.

Yet Contador's third Tour de France victory did not last. In September 2010, he revealed that during the race two months earlier, he had tested positive for trace amounts of the drug clenbuterol, which is sometimes used as a performance-enhancing drug. Contador maintained that the positive test result was due to food contamination. Although an initial investigation by the Royal Spanish Cycling Federation (Real Federación Española de Ciclismo, or RFEC) cleared him of any wrongdoing and chose not to suspend him, the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency both appealed the decision in front of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

In February 2012, the CAS imposed a two-year suspension on Contador for testing positive for the drug. The ban was backdated to the 2010 Tour de France, meaning that while Contador was stripped of that victory and all subsequent wins, he would be eligible to race again in August 2012. Following the announcement of the suspension, Contador's contract with Team Saxo Bank, which he had signed in August 2010, was annulled. Upon his return to cycling, however, he signed a new three-year contract with the same team.

Contador suffered a disappointing 2013 season, winning only thje Tour de San Luis. During the 2014 season, Contador was involved in a crash, reinjuring he knee. Contador announced at the beginning of the 2015 season that he intended to win both the Tour de France and the Giro d'Italia. While he successfully on the Giro d'Italia, Contador came in fifth in the Tour de France. The cyclist then announced that the 2016 season would be his final as a professional athlete. Though he performed admirably, his season was plagued by illness. Contador then postponed his retirement by a season, competing throughout 2017. He completed his final professional race at the Japan Cup on October 21, 2017. In 2018, Contador joined Eurosport as a commentator. In 2020, the athlete partnered with Ivan Basso to open Aurum Bikes.

Bibliography

Bromhead, Nat. "Alberto Contador and Ivan Basso Launch Aurum Bikes." Bicycling Australia, 2020, bicyclingaustralia.com.au/news/alberto-contador-and-ivan-basso-launch-aurum-bikes/#:~:text=High%20profile%20former%20pro%20riders,years%20in%20planning%20and%20development. Accessed 3 Oct. 2024.

Brown, Gregor. "Contador Extends Tour Lead with Stunning Time Trial Win." Cyclingnews.com. Future, 23 July 2009. Web. 15 Jan. 2015.

"CAS Sanction Contador with Two Year Ban in Clenbuterol Case." Cyclingnews.com. Future, 6 Feb. 2012. Web. 15 Jan. 2015.

Macur, Juliet. "Positive Test for Contador May Cost Him Tour Title." New York Times. New York Times, 29 Sept. 2010. Web. 15 Jan. 2015.

Stokes, Shane. "Contador Eligible to Race as Suspension Comes to an End." VeloNation. VeloNation, 5 Aug. 2012. Web. 15 Jan. 2015.