From LeMonde:
 
The organizers of the race had warned that racers "named" in the
Puerto files could not start the Tour.  This is the principle that
impelled the exclusion of the German Jan Ullrich and the Italian Ivan
Basso in 2006.  "In any case the Contador's name could not be linked
to the clientele of Fuentes," argued the boss of the Tour, Patrice
Clerk, on Thursday, July 26, when the Spaniard slipped on the yellow
jersey.

Besides hundreds of pouches of blood, the Guardia Civil seized, in the
spring 2006, many documents where the doctor recorded treatments and
indications for his numerous "clients".  According to our information,
the name Alberto Contador appears several times in these documents.
And, in contrast what Patrice Clerk claimed, Contador was not simply
"quoted in the framework of telephone conversations for results of
races" by chance.

In the files, to which le Monde had access, the investigators note
that "in the document 3 appear marked in different manners the names
of the racers: Dariuz Baranowsky, Joseba Beloki, Gianpaolo Caruso,
Alberto Contador (...)  ".  This piece is part of "the documentation
relating to the illicit presumed activities" of Dr. Fuentes, seized in
one of his Madrid apartments. The investigators specify that the name
Alberto Contador appears under the initials "A.C." in another document
of Fuentes. "On the back of document 31 are handwritten annotations
with the title 'Individualization' where various racers on the Liberty
Seguros-Würth Team are identified by their initials:  R.H. (Roberto
Heras), M.S. (Marcos Serrano), J.B. (Joseba Beloki) (...) A.C.
(Alberto Contador)."

According to the Guardia Civil, these documents correspond to the
planning of the 2005 season for Liberty Seguros.  It was in January
2005 that Alberto Contador returned to competition after his brain
operation in the spring 2004.  As in the cases of Spanish Roberto
Heras, Joseba Beloki or Marcos Serrano, most of the racers named in
these documents are today without a team or on second division
squads.

"DIFFERENT RIDERS GET TREATED DIFFERENTLY"

In contrast to a Roberto Heras or a Joseba Beloki, the investigatory
report did not reveal annotations mentioning doping products opposite
the name Alberto Contador.  The case of Gianpaolo Caruso is, on the
other hand, similar to Contador's.  Now if the Spanish federation did
not deem it worthy to go after their rider, the Antidoping prosecutor
of the Italian Olympic Committee (CONI) required a two year suspension
for Gianpaolo Caruso. "It's completely extraordinary that Contador can
continue to race without being worried about Operation Puerto while
CONI demanded that Caruso be suspended for two years. There isn't more
in the dossier against Caruso than against Contador," said Jörg
Jaksche, former team member of the Spaniard with Liberty Seguros, to
Le Monde.

The German racer had caused a sensation before the Tour began by
publicly admitting taking drugs with the assistance of Dr. Fuentes
when he rode for the Spanish team. "There is different treatment
according to who the rider is," deplores Jaksche, who says he related
the history of his life as a doped cyclist for twenty hours to the
German federal police on Wednesday the 25th and Thursday July 26th.

Alberto Contador himself had been questioned scarcely ten minutes, in
December 2006, by the magistrate charged with the Puerto dossier.  In
front of Judge Antonio Serrano, Contador declared he did not know
Eufemiano Fuentes.  He also refused to submit to DNA sampling that
could have verified that certain blood pockets, recovered from the
apartments Fuentes performed autologous transfusions in, were destined
for him.

---

PC Magazine's 2007 editors' choice for best web mail—award-winning Windows Live Hotmail. Check it out!