Spyns Tour de France Trip Packages: Contador's lawyer explains ban U-turn

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With just over 4 months to go until the start of the 2011 Tour de France, Spyns Clients may now get to see the always interesting and exciting Schleck/Contacor Duel!  I guess only time will tell.

Alberto Contador's lawyer has told The Independent how his client's suspension has been lifted despite him being found with the banned substance clenbuterol in his system when he won last year's Tour de France after eating contaminated steak.

Andy Ramos said the defence team's default position in the case was that Contador had strayed across the boundaries of anti-doping law without being aware he was doing so. "The [anti-doping] legislation states that a rider is responsible for any banned substance in his body," Ramos says. "But there's a clause that frees him of that responsibility if he can demonstrate there was no intentional negligence. We proved that, and that was the key to his defence. From day one his defence was based around that clause."

The other confusion surrounding Contador's proposed ban was the length, which was just a year, but Ramos explains this "was no more than a prosecutor's proposal". "It was wrongly thought that a year's ban was an actual sentence, and that the Spanish cycling federation was then influenced by political pressure in Spain [to reduce it]. But that proposal was not legally binding."

As for those who believe that a banned substance in an athlete's body is a positive under Wada regulations come what may, Ramos argued "they should read the whole rulebook, not just the article [that states that] and they would find there are exceptions to that rule."

Spyns Tours and TDF Tours specialize in Tour de France packages for both riders, non-riders, and mixed tours. Spyns is an active travel company based in Whister, BC (Canada) and Beaujolais France. Spyns offers active holidays to Europe including trips to the 2011 Tour de France. For more information about Spyns 2011 Tour de France tours, please visit http://www.tdf-tours.com/ http://www.spyns.com/ or call 1.888.825.4720.