Alberto Contador
Spanish professional cyclist / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alberto Contador Velasco (born 6 December 1982 in Madrid) is a Spanish road racing cyclist for the Astana Team. He won the 2007 Tour de France riding for the Discovery Channel team. He also won the 2008 Giro d'Italia riding for Astana. Contador is very good at climbing mountains.
This article needs to be updated. (February 2012) |
Contador became a professional in 2003. In 2004 he started to have headaches. A few days later, while he was racing, he crashed and went to hospital. There, doctors found a problem with a blood vessel in his brain. He needed some dangerous surgery, and needed many months to recover (get better). In 2005 he was healthy, and rode in his first Tour de France. He finished in 31st place.
In 2006 his team had some trouble. A doctor in Spain had given drugs to athletes to help them to win. Some cyclists on Contador's team had worked with the doctor. The police wanted to check to see if Contador had taken drugs. As a result, Contador could not enter the 2006 Tour de France. Later the police decided that Contador had not taken drugs from the doctor. The case about the doctor was called the Operación Puerto doping case, and caused many problems in cycling.