Doping Mire
July 26, 2007
The Rabobank team will continue the Tour de France on Thursday, one day after suspending leader Michael Rasmussen. The 33-year-old Dane allegedly lied about his whereabouts, apparently to avoid out-of-competition doping tests.
"On several occasions, he claimed he was training, and that was a lie," said Rabobank team director Theo de Rooy. "Team management was warned several times and had received new information on Wednesday."
Rasmussen was a controversial figure on the Tour after he was kicked off the Danish national cycling team for having missed two out-of-competition doping tests earlier in the year. He is only the second Tour de France leader to be booted in the 104-year history of the event. In 1978, Michel Pollentier of Belgium had to leave after seemingly trying to cheat with urine that was not his.
Tour would have barred Rasmussen
Rasmussen had told his team he was in Mexico. But a former cyclist, Davide Cassani, then said on Wednesday he had seen him in Italy. Confronted with the statement, Rasmussen admitted to having lied and that he had in fact been in Italy.
"What has happened leaves me speechless," said Piet van Schijndel from the Rabobank Board. "I am lost for words. It's a nightmare."
Van Schijndel said that Rabobank will decide after the Tour whether it will continue sponsoring the cycling team.
Tour organizers said that if they had been informed in time, they would not have allowed Rasmussen to race.
"Michael Rasmussen never should have started the Tour," said Patrice Clerc, head of the Amaury Sport Organization, which runs the Tour. "The champion must be unimpeachable, an example."
On Thursday, French newspaper France Soir ran a mock obituary for the scandal-tainted race on its cover. It said the Tour died Thursday "at age 104, after a long illness."
The Liberation daily wrote that the race had become a joke and should be canceled.
"This procession of cyclists has been transformed into a caravan of ridicule," the paper's editorial said. "If the organizers really want to save cycling, they should stop the competition and declare a pause of a few years, enough time to treat these athletes-turned-druggies."
Cofidis team quits
Rasmussen's departure is the latest blow to the Tour's credibility, and the third doping bombshell to shake the race in two days.
On Wednesday, just hours before the Rasmussen announcement, France's number one team Cofidis pulled out of the race. It had been revealed that its Italian rider Cristian Moreni tested positive for synthetic testosterone after the 11th stage on July 19.
On Tuesday, the Astana team of pre-race favorite Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakhstan quit the race after the announcement that Vinokourov tested positive for an illegal blood transfusion.
Rasmussen was jeered and whistled at by spectators before the start of the 16th stage in the Pyrenees on Wednesday. He received the same treatment at the awards ceremony at the conclusion of the stage, which he won.
Rasmussen, a former cross-country cycling world champion, led the Tour standings ahead of second-place Alberto Contador of Spain by three minutes and 10 seconds in the overall standings after Wednesday's stage. He had seemed certain to win the championship.
Contador -- who has been linked to the Spanish doping probe centering on Eufemiano Fuentes and for that reason was not allowed to compete in the 2006 Tour -- now leads the Tour.
The Tour de France ends on Sunday in Paris.