Contador winner of 2010 Tour de France
The International Cycling Union (UCI) has confirmed it will ask sport's highest court to ban Tour de France winner Alberto Contador for doping.
The Spaniard tested positive for banned substance clenbuterol days before his 2010 Tour de France win last July.
But the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) cleared Contador in February this year.
The 28-year-old's case will now be decided by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne and he now faces a possible two-year ban and the loss of his Tour de France victory. However the Spaniard can continue racing until the CAS gives its verdict.
Clenbuterol is a banned fat-burning, muscle-building drug, but the Spanish federation accepted Contador's explanation that he had inadvertently consumed the drug in contaminated beef.
The World Anti-Doping Agency regards clenbuterol as a zero-tolerance drug, though its rules allow athletes to escape a sanction if they prove "no fault or negligence" on their part.
Contador had minute traces of the drug in his urine samples taken in the closing days of the Tour.
The UCI announced last September that Contador was provisionally suspended and asked the Spanish federation to investigate.
The federation's disciplinary committee originally proposed a one-year ban for Contador in January this year, but his legal team then offered new evidence and he was cleared to race three weeks later.
Days before the decision, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero had said that there was "no legal reason to justify sanctioning Contador".
Contador has since resumed his career with new team Saxo Bank-Sungard and completed two races.
He was fourth in the Tour of Algarve in Portugal and won the Vuelta of Murcia in Spain. He currently leads the week-long Tour of Catalonia.
Contador is one of only five cyclists to win the three Grand Tours - the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Spanish Vuelta.
He also won the Tour de France in 2007 and 2009, but was prevented from defending his first title in 2008 because his Astana team was banned for doping offences at the previous year's race.
Only one cyclist has lost a Tour de France title for doping - American Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 victory.
The UCI's statement on Thursday said: "The International Cycling Union today decided - within the time frame stipulated by the regulations - to appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport against the Spanish Cycling Federation's finding in the case of Alberto Contador.
"The decision to appeal comes after an in-depth study of the file received from the [Spanish Federation]."
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