Contador's uncertain future as ban hits home

Contador, a three-time winner of the world's toughest bike race, was handed a two-year ban from the sport overnight in relation to a positive test for the banned substance clenbuterol during the 2010 edition of the race.

News of Contador's positive test came only weeks after his third yellow jersey triumph in August 2010, after which the Spaniard threatened to quit the sport should he not be cleared of wrongdoing.

"If this is not resolved favourably and in just fashion then I would have to consider whether I would ever get back on a bike," Contador told Spanish broadcaster Telecinco in October 2010.

Contador's explanation that he ate a steak contaminated with clenbuterol, a substance used to help lose weight and help breathing but to also boost performance by increasing strength, was ultimately rejected by the authorities.

What happens next for Contador is anybody's guess. But it won't be the first setback the talented Spanish cyclist has had to sidestep.

Like cancer survivor Lance Armstrong, a seven-time Tour de France champion, Contador suffered his own brush with death. After falling unconscious during the Tour of Asturias race in 2004, a hospital check-up revealed a cavernoma, an aneurism.

Faced with ignoring the problem and risking never riding again or having a risky operation, Contador chose the latter and still has the 100-stitch scar to prove it.

But despite since setting the standard in stage racing, winning a number of one-week races as well as two Giro d'Italia and one Tour of Spain, it has not been all been plain sailing for the Spaniard.

When the Operation Puerto doping scandal erupted in May 2006, Contador's name was among a list said to include dozens of cyclists and athletes from various sports and linked to a blood-doping laboratory.

Eventually, Contador, then riding with the Liberty Seguros team, was cleared of any implication in the affair.

In 2007, while racing for Armstrong's Discovery Channel team, he won his first Tour de France in fortunate circumstances, inheriting the yellow jersey late on after Danish race leader Michael Rasmussen was excluded for suspected doping.

It was during the 2007 edition that the Astana team of Alexandre Vinokourov was thrown off the race after the Kazakhstan rider tested positive for blood doping.

Unfortunately for Contador, he chose to move to Astana when Discovery Channel folded. Months later, Tour de France organisers announced there would be no place on the 2008 edition for Astana.

Instead, Contador competed at the Giro d'Italia and Tour of Spain in 2008, winning both to join an elite club of cyclists to have won all three Grand Tours.

Contador endured a contentious Tour de France campaign in 2009, prompted by the presence of Armstrong after the American had made a comeback in the mistaken belief he could still challenge.

As expected, the Spaniard went on to win the race, leaving Armstrong fighting to finish in third behind first-time runner-up Andy Schleck of Luxembourg.

Schleck would go on to become Contador's biggest rival in 2010, when Armstrong, despite having a new team, collapsed on the first day in the high mountains.

For the second year in a row Schleck finished in second place, by just 31 seconds. It is now only a matter of time before he is handed the 2010 win.

While Contador has been stripped of his 2010 Tour de France victory, and every other he has won since August 2010, the Court of Arbitration (CAS) said his suspension would end on 6 August, 2012.

If Contador still has the hunger, it would allow him to take aim, like 2008, at winning the Tour of Spain.