Contador blames food contamination
Reigning Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has called for anti-doping rules to be revised after his positive test for a banned substance.
The Spaniard, who blames contaminated food for his positive test, is provisionally banned after clenbuterol was found in his urine sample.
"The system is in doubt and should be changed," he told Reuters news agency.
"There has to be a limit set... so that quantities as tiny as those found in my body .. do not count as a positive."
Contador, who has won cycling's most prestigious event three times, has totally rejected rumours of a possible blood transfusion during the Tour.
"If they want to test every sample I've given in the Tour, as many different laboratories as they want, or if they want to freeze it for three or five years until other future tests are scientifically validated and then check it, they can do it," the 27-year-old continued. "I have nothing to hide."
An accredited laboratory in Germany found a "very small concentration" of clenbuterol in Contador's urine sample provided during the Tour on 21 July.
The amount of the muscle-building and fat-burning drug was 400 times less than the benchmark figure that the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) sets as the minimum level it must detect to prove doping.
The sport's governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), said further investigation was needed before any conclusions could be drawn in the case.
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On Thursday, the UCI stated Contador was "formally and provisionally suspended as is prescribed by the World Anti-Doping Code" after both his A and B urine samples tested positive in a laboratory in Cologne.
Clenbuterol is often used in asthma medicines and has some veterinary uses.
Small outbreaks of clenbuterol poisoning - due to contaminated meat - have been reported in various countries.
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