PUIGPUNYENT, Spain, (Reuters) – A depressed Alberto Contador was holed up in a luxury Mallorca hotel yesterday as the Tour de France champion set about coming to terms with a one-year ban for failing a doping test.
The 28-year-old Spaniard was informed of the preliminary decision to suspend him by his national federation (RFEC) on Wednesday and was given 10 days to appeal before a final verdict is reached.
As his Saxo Bank team mates headed out to train on the rain-lashed Balearic Island on Thursday morning, Contador stayed behind at the Gran Hotel Son Net in the hills above the village of Puigpunyent, around 20 kilometres outside the capital Palma. The triple Tour champion, who also faces being stripped of his 2010 title and has said he may quit cycling if he is punished, was licking his wounds in his five-star room as persistent drizzle swept over the mist-shrouded hilltops nearby.
“He is disillusioned because he is innocent and he feels he is being punished unfairly,” Contador’s spokesman Jacinto Vidarte said.
“He is in no condition to train right now and it makes no sense in the current situation,” he added.
“He is feeling down after being informed of the sanction and now he is just waiting for the news conference tomorrow.”
Contador is due to appear before the media at his hotel on Friday at 1500 GMT.
He has been provisionally suspended since August after testing positive for a small amount of the banned anabolic agent clenbuterol during last year’s Tour.
