Not so tranquilo

Like many in the cycling world Philip Gomes remains puzzled by the entire Alberto Contador debacle.

Anyone who is found by a tribunal in a matter in which he was found to be a cheat, is a cheat. So goes the statement by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) supremo John Fahey in response to the finding by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) that Alberto Contador did indeed have a banned substance in his system in late July 2010.

But of course the word "cheat", used by Fahey, flies in the face of the actual judgement issued by the CAS, which determined that Contador did not cheat but was the victim of an accidental ingestion of a banned substance.

In the Panel's opinion, on the basis of the evidence adduced, the presence of Clenbuterol was more likely caused by the ingestion of a contaminated food supplement.

There it is in black and white. True, the panel ruled out Contador's bovine source but it also ruled out a transfusion, an idea much loved by tin foil hat wearing plasticiser conspiracy theorists out there on the internets.

Clearly the WADA boss and former Premier of New South Wales didn't read the judgement.

So digest this for a second (pun intended). The final arbiter, the highest court in sport with all the information available to it, supplied by all sides - the International Cycling Union (UCI), Contador and WADA - found that Contador's positive was an accident.

Yes it is true that Contador had clenbuterol in his system, something not even he denies, but how that eventuated became the important question.

So, like many interested observers out there, I spent the darkened hours of Tuesday morning wading through the documentation supplied by the CAS (all 7.4MB and 98 pages of it) looking for proof Alberto Contador was a cheat. I found none.

I was searching to see if El Pistolero's trademark smoking gun had been turned against him, but what was presented was essentially summed up in the synopsis. This generation's best Grand Tour rider was guilty of nothing except taking an unfortunate bite out of something that ended up giving everyone in the sport 18 months of extreme indigestion.

And no one seemed to be happy with the outcome, not the UCI, not the 2010 Tour de France runner-up Andy Schleck and certainly not Contador.

Yet in fan comments all across the globe (with the exception of Spain) and here on Cycling Central, Alberto Contador was as Fahey described, a cheat.

This is a disconnect I'm trying to pull apart as I sit here writing this. Why? Don't cycling fans read? Or are they only interested in seeing what they want to see?

Like Lance Armstrong before him there is no clear proof that Contador is a cheat (if you indignant readers have any actual proof send it to me, I'll pass it on to the relevant authorities), so why the hate out there for Contador? Why the gloating? Why the "hang him high" rhetoric?

I reckon it goes back to another fateful moment in July 2010, one where the gentle Andy Schleck had his pony taken away from him so cynically by Contador in the infamous "Chaingate" incident during Stage 15 of the Tour de France.

But even there most reasonable observers reckoned Contador did nothing wrong, yet the fans persisted. "He cheated," they howled on Twitter, Facebook, forums and websites across the globe.

That Contador is the best Grand Tour rider of his generation is obvious. Like Armstrong, Contador beats everyone like a drum, smashes them, chews them up and spits them out then points his finger into the camera as he crosses the finish line and goes, "BANG".

So it seems the price someone that good must pay in the post-Armstrong era is that he can only be a cheat if he comes close to replicating what Armstrong did.

I await August and the Vuelta a Espana with interest.