News

Thu 26 Jul, 11:00 pm UTC

News archive

"My boss is mad" says Rasmussen

By AFP

Michael Rasmussen has reacted angrily to being kicked out of the Tour de France and sacked by his team after allegedly lying over a missed random dope test.

Rabobank dramatically split with Rasmussen after the Danish rider had consolidated his race lead with victory in Wednesday's 16th stage.
The Dutch team justified their action by saying Rasmussen had lied when he said he'd been in Mexico rather than Italy for one of the four dope tests he failed to show up for in the past 18 months.
But, in an interview with Danish newspaper B.T Rasmussen questioned his team manager Theo de Rooy's decision to drop him.
"It's the work of a desperate man who is at the end of his nerves,"
Rasmussen told the paper's website.
"My boss is mad," he added, claiming that he hadn't lied over his wherabouts for last month's test.
"I wasn't in Italy, no way. That's the story of one man (former cyclist and now an Italian television presenter Davide Cassani) who thinks he saw me. But there's not the slightest proof."
Rasmussen was dropped after Cassani claimed on Italian television station RAI that he'd seen the cyclist in June in the Italian Dolomites at a time when he'd told his team he was preparing for the Tour de France in Mexico.
De Rooy, explaining his decision to drop Rasmussen, had earlier Thursday
claimed: "He lied to me, that is the chief reason (for sacking him)."
On the verge of tears Rasmussen told the paper that the scandal had left him "broken and destroyed" and with nowhere left to turn.

To add to the rider's woes, speaking from the Hague a Dutch International Cycling Union (UCI) official, Joop Atsma, said Thursday that the union would impose sanctions on the Dane.
"Rasmussen lied about his whereabouts. He also lied to the UCI, sanctions must be applied," Atsma, the president of the UCI Road Commission told the ANP news agency.
Atsma, who is also a member ofthe Dutch parliament , added that it is not yet known what kind of punishment Rasmussen will get as this is a rather novel situation because the cyclist has never tested positive for doping on a UCI test.
Whatever the ultimate sanction, Atsma stressed that Rasmussen has already been severely punished.
"No cycling team will ever want to hire him again. His career is over," he said.
Despite having no positive tests so far, the 33-year-old climbing specialist has been the subject of doping speculation since it was revealed last week that he missed four random doping controls over the past 18 months.
Rabobank fired him after claims that Rasmussen had lied about where he was at the time of the controls.

©AFP2007

User Comments

There are 6 comments on this post

Showing 1 - 6 of 6 comments

  • Surely if he was in Mexico he would have a stamp in his passport??

  • And be wearing a sombrero.

    I'm loving the 'my boss is mad' defence. I frequently use it myself.

  • At times like these there is no place for sarcastic comments. What we need is solutions.

    A simple solution in my eyes would be for Dr Ferrari and Dr Fuentes to move to Mexico and this mess will never happen again.

  • Where's the positive samples ?

    Why did n't his alledgedly MBA educated 'mate' in the US take photos of his shoebox of drugs ?

    I know Rasmatazz is a bit skinny and looks like he could be selling The Big Issue outside London Bridge station - but be nice to have some hard facts/proof before condemning the guy.

  • Good point about the stamp on his passport from the country of Mexico. Maybe the fact that it wasn't stamped to coincide with his absence was the determining factor. The woman from Australia even said he claimed to notify her of his whereabouts before she was supposed to have taken her current post. It seems at the moment he has been dishonest about something so why believe anything else he says? The article is correct, his career is over, that is the ultimate punishment.

  • I love cycling, and I think the testing regieme clearly is better than ever (obviously not perfect until they can catch the own-blood transfusions), but when it comes to the people in charge, the infighting makes the whole thing look like a bit of a shambles. I personally find the sniping between WADA, the UCI and the ASO quite distastful. I also think that more should have come of operation puerto, and that the french lab who like to phone l'equipe before the UCI ought to have their license revoked.

    I think the whole thing smacks of a witchhunt. The 'my boss is mad and at his wits end' probably comes from the fact that de Rooy has little choice but to sack him given the way this has been blown up by the media & the resultant pressure from sponsors.

    Although I understand the suspicion surrounding Rasmussen there is a total lack of hard evidence that he has cheated. Everyone is very quick to put him in the same basket as Vino but his sacking seems to rely on the word of an italian TV presenter who, in the past, has also taken a pop at Lance Armstrong with zero evidence to back it up.

    I also doubt very much if he's the only rider who's missed an out of competition test, given that there is a requirement to supply ones whereabouts, to the hour, three months in advance. You can check the forms out on the UCI website. If you do so, you will also notice that they have a "banner" on because the UCI didn't even stump up the cash to pay for the PDF software they've used.

  • 1

Post comment:

You need to login or register to post comments.

Also on BikeRadar