Contador welcomes decision to open disciplinary proceedings

TOUR de France champion Alberto Contador gratefully accepted cycling world governing body the UCI's decision to ask the Spanish Cycling Federation to open disciplinary proceedings against him.

ACCEPTING: Alberto Contador has welcomed the UCI's decision to ask the Spanish Cycling Federation to open proceedings against him (Reuters)

The 27-year-old tested positive for banned stimulant clenbuterol on July 21 - the second rest day of the 2010 race - and as a result was provisionally banned by the UCI.

Contador, who won the 2007 and 2009 Tours de France, has protested his innocence however and claimed the failed test is as a result of eating contaminated meat.

And the Spaniard has welcomed the decision to open proceedings.

"I am pleased that the case has come to the Federation because it means we can move forward," the Spaniard was quoted as saying in a statement released by his spokesman Jacinto Vidarte.

The statement added: "The legal team of Alberto Contador, after receiving and carefully studying the report submitted by the International Cycling Union to the Spanish cycling federation, maintains their optimism and confidence in bringing a resolution to the case.

"The dossier prepared by the UCI and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) focuses on the hypothesis of food contamination.

"Thus, according to documents submitted by the UCI and WADA, food contamination remains the only reasonable explanation from a scientific point of view to justify the presence of the tiny amount of clenbuterol in the body of the rider during the Tour de France."

"(Contador's legal team) are working with the hope of a verdict in the shortest possible time, with the objective that Alberto Contador can begin the next cycling season without any obstacle."

The UCI revealed the amount of clenbuterol detected in Contador's sample was 400 times smaller than the World Anti-Doping Agency are required to detect.