Contador leaps to defense of "lynched" Lance Armstrong

Alberto Contador, speaking at the presentation ceremony for the 2013 Tour de France, showed solidarity with US rider Lance Armstrong, who received a life ban for doping and was stripped of his seven French titles earlier this week.

"It seems to me that at certain times and in certain places Lance is not being treated with any respect," Contador told reporters. "He is being humiliated and lynched; in my opinion, he is being destroyed."

Contador, who was stripped of the 2008 Tour title for a positive clenbuterol test and later served a retroactive ban that ended in August of this year, expressed his concern over the lack of evidence in Armstrong's case.

Right now people are talking about Lance but there has not been any new test or anything"

"Right now people are talking about Lance but there has not been any new test or anything," said the reigning Vuelta a España champion. "There is little that needs to be changed at the moment. The tests we have are as rigorous as possible; we have to be locatable at all times. There will be people who will have doubts, given everything that has come out, and I understand it. I say to them that they should believe completely that riders win races without help, also on the Tour."

Armstrong stands accused of operating a doping ring while racing with the US Postal Service team that the US Anti-Doping Agency described as the "most sophisticated ever seen in sport." Armstrong has always fought claims of doping against him but resigned himself to the subsequent decision by the UCI to impose the maximum sanction. "There comes a time in life when you have to say enough is enough," Armstrong said.