It’s time to lay off a true champion (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

It’s time to lay off a true champion

5:20pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Simon Parker Column By Simon Parker

Cycling have captured their big fish in Alberto Contador.

Justice was finally meted out on the Spaniard, slapped with a two-year ban after testing positive.

Contador still claims he had eaten a contaminated steak brought in by a pal.

But the Court of Arbitration for Sport insisted he had still broken the rules and will miss the Tour de France and Olympics.

Contador has also had to hand back his yellow jersey in shame, joining a list of fallen idols.

But with one big name on the hook, the largest of the lot has been allowed to swim free.

The fact that the latest investigation into Lance Armstrong’s alleged doping had been dropped slipped through the net with the Contador story.

But a long-running case on the seven-time Tour champion drew a big fat blank. As has every previous effort to bring him down.

Now maybe, just maybe, the most drug-tested athlete in sports history will be acknowledged for what he has achieved and not for what some will always like to think he’s done.

Maybe I’m still stubbornly looking at it through rose-tinted glasses but the Armstrong story remains the greatest inspiration of them all.

I hope it is time for those obsessed in trying to bring him down to move on. Remove the suspicion from an incredible legacy.