Now you have a situation where a leading Spanish cyclist accuses a Spanish beef producer of disseminating beef contaminated with a muscle-building drug used to fatten cattle quickly. And in the middle, Spain’s doping authorities have to sort it all out.

So here’s where we stand. Contador, winner of the Tour de France, has been accused of using clenbuterol after trace amounts were found in his urine samples taken during last July’s Tour. Contador says he unknowingly ingested the drug by eating contaminated meat from a butcher in northern Spain.

The World Anti-doping Agency said after visiting the butcher and his slaughterhouse that it could find no evidence to support Contador’s claim.

So now Spain’s beef producers are calling for an investigation into Contador’s allegations.

Meanwhile, Luxembourg ace and our man Andy Schleck, the Tour’s runner-up who stands to take the 2010 yellow jersey away from Contador if the latter is found culpable, says he believes Contador is telling the truth and doesn’t want the crown sloppy seconds. Like Matt Damon in “Rounders,” he wants to win the Tour straight up — not “via a desk.” That’s why we love Andy.

Armstrong Doping Investigation JRA — Just Rolling Along

American investigators were in France to review evidence in their grand jury investigation into allegations of systematic doping by the American champion Lance Armstrong.

A week ago the Americans met with French police at the headquarters of the international law enforcement agency Interpol, in Lyon. That meeting, according to sources cited by the AP, focused largely on a police investigation of medical equipment retrieved from a trash container during the 2009 Tour.