AP Enterprise: Bad food can harm innocent athletes

PARIS — When cycling's top rider, Alberto Contador, failed a drug test at the Tour de France last year, he joined a long list of athletes who have blamed positives on something they swallowed — from veal to whiskey to toothpaste.

Whether cycling officials think Contador is lying with his claim that tainted steak caused him to flunk his dope test will soon become clear. Spain's cycling federation says it should announce a decision within days or weeks.

Whatever the ruling, Contador's case highlights a growing concern among anti-doping scientists, coaches and athletes around the world. Even if the story given by the three-time Tour de France winner sounds tired to outsiders, there is a growing body of opinion that the drug Contador tested positive for — clenbuterol — can, in fact, be consumed unwittingly from eating bad meat. Unless anti-doping rules are changed, scientists warn, there's a risk that innocent athletes who did not dope could be unfairly punished.

Among the prominent people to raise questions about clenbuterol testing is Zhao Jian, deputy director-general of China's Anti-Doping Agency.

Clenbuterol burns fat and builds muscle. That makes it attractive for both dopers and farmers, who use it to bulk up livestock. In China, in particular, its illegal use in farming is well documented. The Chinese nickname for the drug — "lean meat powder" — speaks of its muscle-building properties.

To verify whether clenbuterol-contaminated meat can cause flunked tests, China's anti-doping lab in 2009 bought pork, had lab workers eat it, and analyzed their urine. Some failed. Had they been athletes, they would have faced a ban.

"We discovered that if the pork meat or liver is heavily contaminated, then you can test positive from eating it, but not every time," Zhao said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "It's possible. That's fact, scientifically proven. You can test positive from contaminated meat."

On its website, China's agency advises athletes to avoid eating out, cautioning: "Our country's anti-doping testing lab has done experiments which show that eating pork meat or pork liver containing 'lean meat powder' — clenbuterol — can trigger a positive result."

Part of the problem is that clenbuterol detection has become so good. To be accredited by the World Anti-Doping Agency, labs must be able to detect very small concentrations. Some, however, can spot concentrations far lower than WADA's required minimum, traces tiny enough to possibly have come from food, not doping.