Contador will draw his bow after the Vuelta

Photo: Joel Saget Archives Agence France-Presse
For a few nanograms of clenbuterol, Alberto Contador had tested positive during the 2010 Tour de France.

One last Vuelta, and then it will go : – to 34-year-old, Alberto Contador is going to put an end to his career, a symbol of its time, made up of an absolute genius on the pedals, but also of a shadow part and doping.

“I’m doing this video to inform you of two things : the first is that I’m going to participate in the upcoming Vuelta, the second is that this will be my last race in professional cycling, “announced the” Gunslinger ” Contador on the social networks, there is also a symbol of a generation all-digital.

Nine or seven ? This simple question around the number of grand tours won by the spaniard to the eyebrows of raven-down to alone his career.

On the field, Contador is imposed on nine occasions between 2007 and 2015 in all the grand tours, registering its name in the history of the Giro, the Tour de France and Vuelta, along the Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault and Vincenzo Nibali in this very closed circle. A tour-de-force that Lance Armstrong has never managed to achieve, the American, throwing his sights on the Great Loop.

Caught by the patrol anti-doping

But in these years post-Armstrong, when the international cycling is a hunting without a thank you to the doping, the Spaniard is caught by the patrol. For a few nanograms of clenbuterol, it is tested positive during the 2010 Tour de France.

If he proclaimed his innocence and pleaded food poisoning, it is suspended at the end of September 2010 by the international cycling Union (UCI) provisionally. Cleared by the Spanish Federation and is allowed to use, he won his second Giro d’italia in 2011, with its first two (and only) successful steps.

But, again, the authorities return to the charge : the UCI and the world anti-doping Agency go to the Court of arbitration for sport (CAS), who pronounces in February 2012, a suspension retroactive to two years.

Farewell, therefore, the gain of the 2010 Tour de France and the final victory in the Giro 2011, bringing to seven its success in the winners of the great towers, a sanction he has never accepted. “Everyone knows that this is my third victory,” let-t-he end of may 2015, after its last win on the Giro d’italia.

Climber proud, to style a high fluidity, Contador has never won a single stage of the Giro, since his two stage wins in 2011 have been removed. A paradox for the rider who likes to go on the attack, raiding large-scale, surprise his opponents. But that is past master in the art of analysing the situations of the race, calculate, manage.

With more sulphur

The native of Madrid, the capital, that his parents Francisco and Francisca have supported four years before his birth, is a wise man. But, by temperament, he is on the offensive. On the bike and behind the scenes. Lance Armstrong, who was a cohabitation rough in the 2009 Tour that Contador emerged as the victor, he made the charge.

“Although this is a very great champion, I have never had admiration for him and I will never,” said the proud Castilian, with commendable frankness, at the end of this Tour that he was marked by a double number to a power, staggering, in the ascent of Verbier and the time trial in Annecy.

Product of its time, the “Gunslinger” has raced under the rule of the bosses of teams more sulphur than others. Manolo Saiz, who made him sign his first professional contract in 2003, Johan Bruyneel, the unwavering support of Armstrong, Bjarne Riis, finally, fired in march 2015 on his own team that he had sold to the tycoon Russian Oleg Tinkov.

Is facing great difficulties, has also been one of the trademarks of Contador, in the image of this fall in 2004 in the Tour of Asturias, a beginning of a rupture of aneurysm, and an operation of a cerebral edema, which could have cost him his life.

And it is with a mind of steel and a craving like that that it will search for the Vuelta 2012 after its sanction.

It is on its Spanish lands he will depart to the conquest of the last stiff he has the secret, from the 19th of August.