Alberto Contador Suspended for two Years...

Well, not quite. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) decided to strip him of all his wins since he supposedly tested positive for clenbuterol almost 18 months ago, thereby allowing him to ride again this year beginning in August of 2012. He will be eligible to ride the Vuelta a España, the World Championships and the Giro D'Lombardia, three races which he can definitely do well in if not win outright.

What galls me are the haters who never forgave Contador for not lying down and letting the PED-ridden Lance Armstrong win the Tour in 2009. He was also taken to task for daring to attack Andy Schleck in 2010 when he had a mechanical failure during a crucial moment of a stage where Contador was able to take just enough time to garner a winning overall margin of victory. These things along with his annoying "Pistolero" salute made him a reviled figure amongst the Armstrong Branch Davidians, who continue to gloat about how Saint Lance walks on water, does no wrong and continues to cure cancer throughout the world by telling victims of the disease to don his yellow plastic bracelet and dare to "Livestrong".

The overall attitude in cycling is that Contador got hosed. Even the great Eddy Merckx felt the ban was excessive. Here is the man in his own words-

"It's very sad for him and for cycling in general. It's as if somebody wanted to kill cycling," Merckx told Eurosport. "I'm very surprised and disgusted. It's bad for everyone, for the reputation of cycling, for the sponsors."

He continued by insinuating that cycling's efforts to combat doping were excessive and that other sports did not apply the rules in the same way. "I think it's going too far - when a test result is like this one, 0.0000... it's only in cycling that this sort of thing happens.

"I'm the first to say that we need controls, but I think that we are going too far in cycling."

What this does is effectively protects Lance Armstrong's tainted record of 7 Tour de France wins. The gangster thug of pro cycling wins yet again, and everyone is the lesser for it. What is funny is that the court decided that the contamination more than likely came from something he ingested, not from what all the anti-Contador yahoos were convinced was a blood transfusion during one of the Tour's rest days. Funny how all of a sudden so many of these Armstrong doping deniers morph into human physiology and hematology experts when the target is someone they despise.

Regardless, Saxo Bank team boos Bjarne Riis, he no stranger to doping controversies, will try to maintain his composure now that he has no team to take to either the Giro or the Tour with a snowball's chance of winning. We'll all have to wait until August for Contador to come back strong and right this egregious wrong. Even though a doping positive eliminates his contract with the team, I highly doubt Saxo Bank will let him ride for another team once he gets back from his suspension.

And while this is going on, we'll have to be subjected to one of the dirtiest teams ever to ride in the pro peloton, directed by the dirtiest and dishonest director sportifs that ever got behind the wheel of a team car in Johan Bruyneel. No doubt the legion of Armstrong zombie fanboys will be cheering on the Schleck Brothers as they ride unhindered by a more talented rider there to challenge them.
Enjoy it while it lasts, you cocksuckers-if there is any justice in this world Bruyneel will be behind bars if the European authorities continue their look into what the US Feds were kept from completing.