Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador to retire after Tour of Spain

TOP Spanish cyclist Alberto Contador has announced that he is going to retire from the sport  at the end of the current season.

The 34-year-old, confirmed he will ride in this year’s Vuelta de Espana (Tour of Spain) which starts on 19  August and that will be his final race.

Contador recently finished ninth in this year’s Tour de France while riding for the Trek-Segafredo team.

He won the Tour de France in 2007 and 2009, the Giro de Italia in 2008 and 2015 and the Vuelta de Espana in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

But he was sensationally stripped of the 2010 Tour de France title after testing positive and forced to serve a two-year doping ban.  Contador’s claimed that contaminated meat was to blame for the traces of Clenbuterol that were found.

In late January 2011, the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) proposed a one-year ban, but it subsequently accepted Contador’s appeal and cleared him of all charges. 

The UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency each appealed the RFEC decision independently to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March 2011, but Contador remained free to ride until the CAS made its ruling in February 2012. 

The decision found Contador guilty of accidental ingestion of the prohibited substance Clenbuterol[166] and hence he was stripped of his 2010 Tour de France title, and his results since that race, including victory in the 2011 Giro d’Italia and fifth place in the 2011 Tour de France, were voided, and he was suspended until August 2012.

Following his return from suspension, he has won several Grand Tours, though he has not managed to win the Tour de France again.

Contador is known as an attacking rider, who excels as a climber and in his best days also was an excellent time-trialist.