ALBERTO CONTADOR’S DOPING case will be heard over three days next month at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

CAS set aside 6-8 June on Friday to hear appeals filed by the International Cycling Union (UCI) and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) against the three-time Tour de France champion and the Spanish cycling federation.

The court has said it aims to deliver a verdict by the end of June, which would allow Contador to defend his Tour title if exonerated.

The UCI and WADA are challenging Contador’s acquittal on doping charges by Spanish authorities in February.

A tribunal accepted Contador’s defence that eating contaminated beef caused his positive test for clenbuterol when he led in the final week of the Tour last July.

Contador can continue riding until the verdict and currently leads the three-week Giro d’Italia.

If CAS rules against Contador, he faces a ban of up to two years, being stripped of his third Tour victory and losing all of his results and prize money earned since February, when the UCI lifted his provisional suspension.

The appeals will be heard behind closed doors at the court’s headquarters in Lausanne.

CAS previously announced the three arbitrators who will rule on the case. The court appointed Israeli lawyer Efraim Barak to chair the panel, while Contador’s legal team chose Germany’s Ulrich Haas and the UCI and WADA selected Quentin Byrne-Sutton of Switzerland.

The panel will likely give a decision within two weeks and a detailed verdict later.

The 2011 Tour de France begins 2 July.

- AP

Burning question: should Contador’s ban have been overturned?