Rasmussen doped?

leerobbs said:

I agree it is way to early to count anyone out who is within 6 minutes, but a juiced up Rasmussen could spell the end for everyone else who is clean and riding without chemical assistance.

There's your problem, posting nonsense like that. Wiggins and Gilbert aren't GC threats, silly.

wilmar13 said:

30 minute breakaway you drooling [censored]... and to your original idiotic post: they don't call him chicken legs for nothing, he is a climbing specialist winning a climbing stage with a finish at the top of the last climb for christ's sake. 🙄

He's also known as 'Urko'. 😉

Dead Star said:

He's also known as 'Urko'. 😉

No, Urko is Pereiro. Rasmussen's code name is Tariq Raja.

The way i see it is he just sits back and does what he needs to do to stay out of trouble and keep himself as fresh as possible. Then when the climbs start he lets it all hang out. Now that we are back in the flats he is going to go right back to being safe and staying in the peloton. He will pull a mediocre time trial and then may explode in the Pyrenees again. The peloton did let him go in 05. He wasn't a threat.

I don't know if he doped, but his nose is a perfect equilateral triangle.

Rass has been pulled from the Danish Worlds team and Olympic team due to his failure to tell the Danish authorities where he was in relation to random out of competition dope tests.http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/6907568.stm

LaarsX said:

Rass has been pulled from the Danish Worlds team and Olympic team due to his failure to tell the Danish authorities where he was in relation to random out of competition dope tests.http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/cycling/6907568.stm

This was my original post and I was called a troll, and viewed as a nut. Looks like something may be brewing and those name callers... aka... biking experts might not be right.

leerobbs said:

This was my original post and I was called a troll, and viewed as a nut. Looks like something may be brewing and those name callers... aka... biking experts might not be right.

I don't think you have been proved right in anything. You think on the same lines as most tabloid journos thats all🙄

I started to write something here yesterday. Something like, pull your collective heads out, they all dope, but thought to myself, naw, wait, something will surface.

And guess what?

Rasmussen booted from Danish national team
No world's for Tour leader
By Agence France Presse
This report filed July 19, 2007
Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has been axed from the Danish national team following a disagreement over drug testing, it was announced on Thursday.

The director of the Danish Cycling Union (DCU) Jesper Worre told DR1 television station that Rasmussen had received a number of warnings over failing to inform doping authorities over his training whereabouts.

"We consider this case with great seriousness and the executive of the DCU decided that Michael will no longer be part of the national team and he was informed of this on June 26," said Worre.

The decision means that Rasmussen will be ruled out of the world championships in Stuttgart in September and the Olympics in Beijing in 2008.

Rasmussen, who rides for the Rabobank team, has said he had received just one warning but Worre insists there have been several notices issued.

Rasmussen currently leads the Tour de France after 11 stages and enjoys a lead of 2:35 lead over Spain's Alejandro Valverde.

"It is confidential information but people have the right to know that the DCU fights for a clean sport," said Worre.

Worre said, however that he is not raising sepcific doping allegations.

"The DCU is not saying that Michael tested positive," he said. "But there are a number of question marks over his behaviour and attitude" that place doubts over his place in the national team.

Rasmussen told reporters from the Danish Politiken newspaper that he considered the decision to be a bad one.

"I have tried to give my explanations to the DCU but they haven't accepted them," he said. "But this isn't something that will interfere with my participation in the Tour de France."

In a move which will not help ease his relationship with his country's governing body, Rasmussen said he will boycott the Tour of Denmark in August.

"I cannot take part in a race arranged by an organization which looks to thwart me in this way," he said.

Look people, just because you're a fan of a certain rider and have his or her poster on your bedroom ceiling doesn't preclude him or her from doping. In fact, in my mind, if they're on a poster, they're doping.

Okay, I say this knowing it's going to [censored] some people off, but it shouldn't. Cycling, baseball, football... all pro sports go year around. Performances last for months on end. It is entertainment and you can't expect the entertainers to be entertaining unless they resort to assistance.

Get [censored] when a pro athlete finds a some undetectable doping method and then becomes a pig, like winning the Tour seven times and boring the hell out of cycling fans for seven years.

This year's Tour is exciting because the top talents have been target tested while the vast majority of the peloton has been tested by the same easily defeated protocols used in the past. Vino ain't a climber or a TT w/o blood doping. Kloden, apparently is. Razzy slipped through the cracks but he'll get his. McQ can't get over the high passes without some help.

I like the current approach to target testing the top tier. It makes racing more interesting. And, if you keep target testing the top riders, eventually you'll reach the bottom of the heap.

These guys are out of the old school, Social Democratic political system that took all your money in taxes and spent it on their idea of what was good for you. They want to control everything in the name of establishing "higher moral standards" for danish cyclists. This type of BS permeates the danish sports establishment. The same type of thinking has tried to run Anja Andersen - the best womans team handball player ever and arguably an even better coach - out of danish team handball. Anja is too inependant for them and so is Michael.

Rasmussen represents the anthesis of this type of thinking. He is, perhaps to a fault, fiercely independant and resistant of authority. Ask the Rabobank people who have canned him for this.

Ramussen wants to keep his training whereabouts a secret because he hates the press, he hates the danish cycling union and he wants to be able to concentrate on riding 100% without any distractions. He is more american in this regard than danish.

I applaud him and i am with him 100%. I don't know of any decent red-blooded cyclist who would or should up with this kind of BS.

NJK said:

I don't think you have been proved right in anything. You think on the same lines as most tabloid journos thats all🙄

I said "might" so who knows at this point, but I was slammed by some for my original comment.

Frihed89 said:

I don't know of any decent red-blooded cyclist who would or should up with this kind of BS.

Especially any decent red blood enhanced cyclist 😉

Frihed89 said:

... Ramussen wants to keep his training whereabouts a secret because ...

Do you think, maybe he also wants to dope? It's not like the UCI/WADA broadcast the whereabouts of professional cyclists? I can understand not wearing the team kit, but not being where you stated you were going to be? I mean, wtf?

Look, any pro cyclist who wants to train at altitude without being pestered by throngs of fans or hordes of paparazzi can go to Colorado, USA. It a place where cycling is probably the most popular and recognized sport in the US, yet still, relative to the rest of the population, no one really gives a damn.

helmutRoole2 said:

Do you think, maybe he also wants to dope? It's not like the UCI/WADA broadcast the whereabouts of professional cyclists? I can understand not wearing the team kit, but not being where you stated you were going to be? I mean, wtf?

Look, any pro cyclist who wants to train at altitude without being pestered by throngs of fans or hordes of paparazzi can go to Colorado, USA. It a place where cycling is probably the most popular and recognized sport in the US, yet still, relative to the rest of the population, no one really gives a damn.

[font=Verdana]yes but have you been to [/font][font=Verdana]Mexico[/font][font=Verdana] ? Professional cyclists are mobbed in the streets and treated like rockstars..... there is no let up for them..... I'm with Rass.... he wants to go to the cycling Mecca of Mexico the land of zero pollution and train without being bothered.... I mean if the country had issues with poverty then the people could better spend there time looking for food, playing street football and not all this business they do with hassling cyclists.... [/font][font=Verdana] [/font]

whiteboytrash said:

[font=Verdana]yes but have you been to [/font][font=Verdana]Mexico[/font][font=Verdana] ? Professional cyclists are mobbed in the streets and treated like rockstars..... there is no let up for them..... I'm with Rass.... he wants to go to the cycling Mecca of Mexico the land of zero pollution and train without being bothered.... I mean if the country had issues with poverty then the people could better spend there time looking for food, playing street football and not all this business they do with hassling cyclists.... [/font][font=Verdana] [/font]

Oh, they're all over professional cyclists in Mexico. You've got to train incognito there. You know, it amazes that, despite the poverty, when you drive through a village, atop every roof is a satelite dish and inside is a 42" plasma with dolby surround sound. And if it's July you can bet the Tour is on. Why, the last time I was there some poor little boy came up to me begging for my half smoke cigarette, so I gave it to him. It was a site to behold. The little boy riding away on his DA carbon Colnago with Hed wheels smoking my half-gone cig. Brings a tear to my eye.

Mikæl is one of many cyclists and sports figures who is angry at the media for being hypocritical. He's also thin-skinned, but fiercely independant. That doesn't make him a doper. In my previous post i was attempting to point out that Mikæl's behavour was consistent with his contempt for authority and the press.

On danish TV today, there was a host of people pushing this "higher moral standard" for sports figures BS and justifying this double standard based on their influence on society and the young. Keep in mind this is a society where all kinds of sexual behavour by politicians (that would mean political ruin in the US) is tolerated and hushed up by the press and they talk about "higher moral standards".

Frihed89 said:

Mikæl is one of many cyclists and sports figures who is angry at the media for being hypocritical. He's also thin-skinned, but fiercely independant. That doesn't make him a doper. In my previous post i was attempting to point out that Mikæl's behavour was consistent with his contempt for authority and the press.

On danish TV today, there was a host of people pushing this "higher moral standard" for sports figures BS and justifying this double standard based on their influence on society and the young. Keep in mind this is a society where all kinds of sexual behavour by politicians (that would mean political ruin in the US) is tolerated and hushed up by the press and they talk about "higher moral standards".

Fark those Mexicans ! Spain hates cycling !
______
travel2.nytimes.com12girona.htmlOpen ↗

THE riders emerge at about 10 in the morning, wheeling their bikes out of centuries-old apartment buildings and coasting down the cobblestone streets of Girona, the accompanying ticka-ticka-ticka merging with the urban soundtrack. They gather on the steps of the post office or on the Pont de Pedra - the stone bridge that spans the Onyar River at the southern end of Girona's historic district - then spin away in a blur of spandex and spokes. Other cyclists take off solo with a support car driven by a coach or a willing spouse.

Among these riders are some prominent athletes, including the six-time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. Yet even when they navigate populated downtown streets or pause for coffee on the pedestrian Rambla de la Llibertat, they are rarely hounded.
"We can pretty much move around town and not be disturbed," said Mr. Armstrong, who has made Girona, about an hour's drive northeast of Barcelona, his training base since 2001. Fifteen North American professional cyclists make up the colony this season, which runs from February to October, including Levi Leipheimer, twice a top-10 Tour de France finisher, and Freddie Rodriguez, the three-time United States champion.

Girona's residents are proud the pro cyclists have chosen their ancient, moody and beautiful Catalonian city as their migratory home, but they respect the riders' privacy. "The cyclists are appreciated, but they can live their everyday lives with complete normality," said a former mayor, Joaquim Nadal i Farreras, now an official in the Catalonian regional government.

Although Girona will lose its most famous part-time resident when Mr. Armstrong retires after next month's Tour de France, Mr. Nadal said, "We expect there will be new cyclists and the tradition will continue."

whiteboytrash said:

Fark those Mexicans ! Spain hates cycling !
______
travel2.nytimes.com12girona.htmlOpen ↗

THE riders emerge at about 10 in the morning, wheeling their bikes out of centuries-old apartment buildings and coasting down the cobblestone streets of Girona, the accompanying ticka-ticka-ticka merging with the urban soundtrack. They gather on the steps of the post office or on the Pont de Pedra - the stone bridge that spans the Onyar River at the southern end of Girona's historic district - then spin away in a blur of spandex and spokes. Other cyclists take off solo with a support car driven by a coach or a willing spouse.

Among these riders are some prominent athletes, including the six-time Tour de France winner, Lance Armstrong. Yet even when they navigate populated downtown streets or pause for coffee on the pedestrian Rambla de la Llibertat, they are rarely hounded.
"We can pretty much move around town and not be disturbed," said Mr. Armstrong, who has made Girona, about an hour's drive northeast of Barcelona, his training base since 2001. Fifteen North American professional cyclists make up the colony this season, which runs from February to October, including Levi Leipheimer, twice a top-10 Tour de France finisher, and Freddie Rodriguez, the three-time United States champion.

Girona's residents are proud the pro cyclists have chosen their ancient, moody and beautiful Catalonian city as their migratory home, but they respect the riders' privacy. "The cyclists are appreciated, but they can live their everyday lives with complete normality," said a former mayor, Joaquim Nadal i Farreras, now an official in the Catalonian regional government.

Although Girona will lose its most famous part-time resident when Mr. Armstrong retires after next month's Tour de France, Mr. Nadal said, "We expect there will be new cyclists and the tradition will continue."

But Lance had Dr. Ferrari, human F1 Program engineering. Nowdays, no freakin way anyone can associate to much with the smart guys...

The doping story is now on the nytimes:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/20/sports/sportsspecial1/19cnd-tour.html?hp