Nadal and Contador auction personal items to help the Spanish Red Cross

PARIS, Apr 8 (Reuters) – Alberto Contador will auction his bike from the Giro d’Italia and the 2011 Tour de France to raise money to help the Spanish Red Cross fight against the coronavirus, while Rafael Nadal joined the campaign by donating the shirt he wore when he won the French Open last year.

Contador, winner of seven editions of the classic cycling laps and who retired in 2017, said on Twitter: “We are still fighting with this Covid-19 and I want to make one more effort. I am going to auction this bike, original of Giro-Tour 2011 very special for me, the proceeds will go entirely to #cruzrojaresponde “.

The Spaniard, who won the Tour de France in 2007 and 2009, was stripped of his Giro d’Italia title in 2011 after a positive clenbuterol the year before. He also won the Giro in 2008 and 2015 and the Vuelta a España in 2008, 2012 and 2014.

Nadal, winner of 19 Grand Slam titles, also used social media to announce the auction of his jersey. “I want to donate the shirt with which I won Roland Garros 2019, it is one of those that I wore the day of the final. It is a shirt that has great value for me,” he said.

Contador’s bicycle, whose entry price in the auction was 2,500 euros ($ 2,716), had already exceeded 12,400 euros.

Some 146,690 people have been infected by the coronavirus in Spain and 14,555 have died.

(1 dollar = 0.9205 euros)

(Report by Julien Pretot; additional information by Rohith Nair; Edited in Spanish by Javier Leira)