MADRID, June 11, 2011 – Spain’s three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador confirmed on Saturday that he will defend his title in cycling’s showpiece event in July despite ongoing doping allegations.

“I’ll be at the Tour de France,” Contador told reporters at a cycling event organized in his name in his home town of Pinto, near Madrid.

The rider will thus be seeking to complete the first Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double since the late Marco Pantani in 1998.

The 28-year-old won the Tour de France in 2007, 2009 and 2010, but his last success is still awaiting ratification from the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

Contador tested positive for a trace amount of the banned substance clenbuterol during last year’s Tour.

The Spanish Cycling Federation initially banned him but then reversed that decision, accepting his claim that he had unknowingly consumed drug-contaminated meat and was therefore not negligent.

That decision prompted an appeal to the CAS from the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA), which will be heard in August after the end of the Tour de France.

“It’s a challenge,” Contador said of the Tour de France.

“For that reason I’ve thought about it, I have been talking to the team, it has been a decision that I have taken together with (SaxoBank team manager) Bjarne Riis. There’s no doubt that for the team it’s essential that I’m there, and for the sponsors.”

He said he plans to now get as much rest as possible before then.

“Those who have been in the Giro can attest to how difficult it is,” he said, admitting that he had felt “not as good as on other occasions” during the Giro.

A poll released in France on Friday showed that two-thirds of French cycling fans would rather Contador does not race in this year’s Tour de France.

Article:AFP
Photo:Corvos