A SPOKESMAN for three-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador has rubbished suggestions that quantities of plasticiser found in the cyclist’s bloodstream indicate he had taken a blood transfusion during the Tour.

The dismissal came after the New York Times reported that traces of the chemical – found in plastic intravenous bags, and which showed up in Contador’s urine – was eight times above the legal limit under cycling rules.

The presence of such a chemical would suggest that Contador may have been taking blood transfusions during the Tour in order to boost his endurances levels.

The Spaniard and three-time Tour champion was provisionally suspended from the sport last week after it emerged he had failed a test for the steriod clenbuterol during a rest day on the Tour de France in July.

He had blamed contaminated beef brought across the border from Spain to France during a Tour rest day at the request of the team’s chef.

World cycling’s governing body, the UCI, said scientists from the body and the World Anti-Doping Agency could seal the cyclists fate.

The test, only recently developed by scientists (in Contador’s homeland of Spain), could be used to retrospectively analyse blood and urine samples from other cyclists kept on file.

The Tour de France’s most prolific winner, Lance Armstrong – who has always insisted he had never taken any performance enhancing drugs – could now see his own seven titles challenged if his samples are examined under the new technology.

Armstrong is currently the subject of a federal investigation in the United States which is investigating allegations that some of the teams he rode for used government funding for doping.

If Contador was to be found guilty of doping offences, and Armstrong was to be implicated in the investigation, it would mean that since 1995, only the 2008 victory of Carlos Sastre would be considered unblemished.