MADRID, March 25, 2011 – World cycling’s governing body “hesitated”
before deciding to appeal against the acquittal of three-time Tour de France
winner Alberto Contador over a doping case, his lawyer said.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced on Thursday it would appeal
to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) against the Spanish cycling
federation’s decision to clear the Spaniard of taking a banned substance.

The UCI took the decision on the last possible day under the rules,
“because it hesitated,” Contador’s lawyer, Andy Ramos, told the Spanish daily
El Mundo.

“It’s a complex case and I learned that (the UCI) had internal discussions,”
he said in the interview, released on the paper’s website Friday.

“If they had noticed errors in the dossier, they would have appealed
immediately.”

Contador tested positive for a tiny amount of the banned muscle-building
substance clenbuterol during last July’s Tour de France, which he went on to
win.

But the Spanish federation last month rescinded an initial decision to hand
down a one-year competition ban, accepting the rider’s claim that he had
unknowingly consumed drug-contaminated meat and was therefore not negligent.