UPDATED: Alberto Contador’s doping timeline

The positive clenbuterol test of Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has consumed the cycling world since its announcement in September. While he’s never tested positive before, Contador’s career has been affected almost from its start by doping allegations — often against others.

2011

• On November 24, CAS completes hearing in Contador’s case. He will have to wait until early next year to find out if he will be striped of his 2010 Tour title. Contador also faces a two year ban from cycling.
• On October 27, CAS announced specific dates for Contador’s hearing: Nov. 21-24.
• On August 31, Contador said he was done racing for 2011. He named the 2012 Tour de France as his main focus and also said he plans to compete in 2012 Vuelta (During the Tour he said he would never attempt the Giro-Tour double again).
• On August 16, Landis told the media that his former coach, Pepe Marti, had also supplied Contador with drugs while he worked with him at Discovery. Landis said Marti is “nothing more than a known drug dealer.”
• A Contador spokesman said what Landis “says about Marti is false.”
• On July 24, Contador wrapped up the Tour de France in 5th overall. Contador started the race saying he was still fatigued from the Giro but said he was hoping his form came around later in the French race. However, bad luck, in the form of crashes, started in the first stage and kept him from ever really contesting for the win.
• Contador finished his 2011 season with a win at the Emmen’s Criterium, a ceremonial post-Tour event, in Holland in mid-August.
• On July 24, Contador wrapped up the Tour de France in 5th overall. Contador started the race saying he was still fatigued from the Giro but said he was hoping his form came around later in the French race. However, bad luck, in the form of crashes, started in the first stage and kept him from ever really contesting for the win.
• Contador finished his 2011 season with a win at the Emmen’s Criterium, a ceremonial post-Tour event, in Holland in mid-August.
• On June 16, the UCI management committee sent out a press release urging the media and fans to respect Contador’s right to compete in the Tour.
• On May 31, CAS announced that Contador’s hearing would be held in early August, opening the door for a Tour defense. In June 11, Contador announced that he would race.
• On May 29, Contador wrapped up his second Giro victory and his sixth grand tour victory in a row., moving him up to seventh on the list of riders with the most grand tour victories.
• On May 15, Contador won the Giro’s ninth stage and took over the maglia rosa. He held the lead all the way to the finale in Milan.
• On March 27, Contador wrapped up a victory in the Tour of Catalunya as he continued his preparation for the Giro d’Italia.
• On March 24, the final day of its appeal period, the UCI announced that it would appeal as Contador was competing in (and leading) the Tour of Catalunya. WADA also joined the appeal and CAS announced it would have a ruling before the 2011 Tour de France.
• On March 6, Contador said the Giro d’Italia would be his first major goal of 2011.
• On February 15, the federation reversed course and cleared Contador, freeing him to start the following day’s Volta ao Algarve. The UCI had 30 days to decide if they wanted to appeal the decision to the Court for Arbitration of Sport.
• On January 26, the Spanish cycling federation told Contador that it proposed a one-year suspension for the positive, notifying him that he could submit more information before the decision was final.

2010

• Contador won his third Tour. In late September, Contador announced that he had been informed that a urine sample he gave on the July 21 rest day tested positive for clenbuterol. He vowed to fight the charge, saying the contamination came from some Spanish beef he ate on the rest day.

2009

• Contador returned to the Tour with Astana (and a surprise new teammate, Lance Armstrong) and won it, his third grand tour win in a row.
• That year Contador raised eyebrows with his blazing ascent during stage 15 of the Tour de France. Three-time Tour winner Greg LeMond publicly questioned whether a un-doped rider could go up the Verbier so fast.
• In late 2009 the French magazine Le Monde reported that officials had found suspicious medical supplies that Astana disposed of during the 2009 Tour. The supplies included included syringes, perfusions and anti-hypertension medications according to the magazine, but no doping products were found.

2008

• Contador joined Astana, along with Discovery manager Johan Bruyneel. However, as in 2006, doping allegations against others kept Contador from starting the Tour.  This time Tour organizers refused to invite Astana because of teammembers’ doping the previous year, most notably Alexander Vinokourov’s positive for blood doping. Despite the new management and riders, Tour owner Amaury Sport Organisation barred Astana from the Tour and other ASO events.
• Contador won the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espana that year, instead.

2007

• Riding for a post-Armstrong Discovery team, Contador won his first Tour de France. He inherited — and then defended — the yellow jersey after race leader Michael Rasmussen was pulled from the race by his team. Rasmussen had missed several anti-doping tests prior to the Tour and allegedly lied to the team about his whereabouts.

2006

• Contador was set to start his second Tour de France with Astana-Würth, the new name for the Liberty Seguras/ONCE program that Contador had turned pro with in 2003. However, five members of the Tour team, including Contador, were named in the emerging Operacion Puerto scandal. The Tour banned the five riders from the race and the team pulled out before the start.
• Contador’s name appeared on a list of nine high-profile competitors now known as the Puerto 9, and his name appeared in several documents related to case. However, the UCI and a Spanish judge cleared him of any involvement with doping and Puerto’s alleged ringleader, Dr. Eufemiano Fuentes, told Spanish radio that he had never worked with him.
• “I was on the wrong team at the wrong time,” Contador said. “My name was on this infamous list, but one week later, the UCI had more time to examine the documents and I was taken off. My relation with Puerto was annulled … I was cleared of any link with the scandal.”

2005

• Contador returned to top-level racing, marking his return by winning a stage at the Tour Down Under after attacking with his Liberty Seguras teammate Luis Leon Sanchez. He started his first Tour de France and finished 31st.

2004

• In May, a then nearly-unknown 21-year-old Contador collapsed and crashed on his face during the first stage of the Vuelta a Asturias, almost dying on the road. In later years, skeptical bloggers tried to tie the collapse to doping, but Contador’s doctors said he had a congenital brain condition called a cerebral cavernoma that is probably related to the condition that caused his younger brother’s cerebral paralysis. After brain surgery and a long rehabilitation, he was cleared to start training again in November that year.