Ruling on Alberto Contador planned before Tour de France

The Court of Arbitration for Sport have reiterated their aim of ruling on the Alberto Contador case before the Tour de France after naming the arbitration panel for the hearing.

The International Cycling Union (UCI) and the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) last month appealed to CAS over a decision by the Spanish Cycling Federation (RFEC) to acquit Saxo Bank-SunGard rider Contador following a failed drugs test last year.

The three-time Tour de France champion insists his inadvertent ingestion of contaminated meat caused his positive test for clenbuterol on July 21, the final rest day of the 2010 Tour, which he won.

The RFEC initially proposed giving the 28-year-old a one-year ban before subsequently acquitting him. The case will be heard by Efraim Barak (Israel), Quentin Byrne-Sutton (Switzerland) and Ulrich Haas (Germany).

A statement on the CAS website, www.tas-cas.org, read: "The written proceedings in this matter are likely to be concluded at the end of May and the CAS envisages to hold a hearing in June 2011, which would allow the settlement of the dispute before the end of June 2011.

"The hearing date will be published once it has been fixed."

The 2011 Tour de France begins on July 2 in Passage du Gois in western France.