Rasmussen out of the tour!!!



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By the way. Just ypothetically speaking.. Rasmussen has been fired from his team and therefore did not start. If you are fired from your team are you also automatically disqualified from the tour itself?

Say.. If he would have been stubborn and arrived at the start line in a plain yellow jersey would he have been halted by the ASO?
 
Trajectum said:
By the way. Just ypothetically speaking.. Rasmussen has been fired from his team and therefore did not start. If you are fired from your team are you also automatically disqualified from the tour itself?

Say.. If he would have been stubborn and arrived at the start line in a plain yellow jersey would he have been halted by the ASO?
At the risk of responding seriously to a question that might have been facetious, riders are not invited to the Tour. Teams are.
 
IH8LANCE said:
At the risk of responding seriously to a question that might have been facetious, riders are not invited to the Tour. Teams are.
Nah I was actually serious I can be a bit dumb sometimes. Anyway of course I know that teams get invited to the tour as opposed to individual riders but I wonderred if.. hmm.. how to say.. well.. once the tour is underway.. I mean.. Like.. as in.. ehm...

whatever, forget it. If I cant even formulate my own thoughts they're not worth debating :)
 
exactly let's get at the truth, cuz this stinks.

Rasmussen has just declared his DS must be crazy or having a nervous breakdown. That he never was or admitted being in Italy. That Cassani has no proof that who he thinks he saw is really me. that he was in fact in mexico.

Well let's hope that there is some proof and not just heresay. I would say that the tour organizers, Rabobank, ASO, and UCI have made a terrible mistake in judgement.

helmutRoole2 said:
I don't want to say that professional cyclists are idiots -- maybe they've got other more important things to think about -- but yeah, it's pretty easy to prove your whereabouts.
 
Scotttri said:
I second that. When has he ever been under any suspicion
Well.. He cant be fully clean, let there be no doubts about that. But then again.. noone in the top ten can be completely clean. He'd have to be superman to ride in 2nd place GC undoped against an utterly doped field and I dont think he is superman.

Then again.. he is as clean as it gets I suppose. He doesnt seem to be pushing the limits of it. And he's also a quite likeable guy. So the 25 % inside me that still cares about the tour (my tv is ofas a form of protest today :p) hopes that he will ride a really good ITT and take the lead.
 
Trajectum said:
Well.. He cant be fully clean, let there be no doubts about that. But then again.. noone in the top ten can be completely clean. He'd have to be superman to ride in 2nd place GC undoped against an utterly doped field and I dont think he is superman.

Then again.. he is as clean as it gets I suppose. He doesnt seem to be pushing the limits of it. And he's also a quite likeable guy. So the 25 % inside me that still cares about the tour (my tv is ofas a form of protest today :p) hopes that he will ride a really good ITT and take the lead.
An example may be that you look at he firstfew riders accross the line and they look fine, you look at cadel and he needs to be carried away. he is digging deep, and is extremely ( naturaly ) talented, i strongly think he is clean, and no it's not cause he's aussie and so am i.
 
Scotttri said:
An example may be that you look at he firstfew riders accross the line and they look fine, you look at cadel and he needs to be carried away. he is digging deep, and is extremely ( naturaly ) talented, i strongly think he is clean, and no it's not cause he's aussie and so am i.
I'm not accusing him dont get me wrong. I think he is as clean as it gets in the top of the GC. But you are underestimating the effect of doping on performances (not just the doping in the tour but also, and more so, the doping during the preparation and training stage). The effect is huge.

It might have been possible to win a tour without using PEDs in the 1950s (not that itever happened.. Since WW2 there has never been a winner that would not in a later stage admit to/be associated with doping) when the effects of doping were lower but nowadays it is not.

Unless he is superman. And if that is the case he really does get screwed over because if he can ride the way he does now on a glass of milk than he would have been 3 hours ahead of the field if they all were on milk alone.
 
Scotttri said:
I second that. When has he ever been under any suspicion
Humm...........didn’t he ride for T-Mobile, and haven't there been some recent revelations regarding doping in the recent past.......I am sure he was the only one who didn't partake.
 
thoughtforfood said:
Humm...........didn’t he ride for T-Mobile, and haven't there been some recent revelations regarding doping in the recent past.......I am sure he was the only one who didn't partake.


I have a feeling that the **** is about to fly in all directions in a Kaleidoscope of doping revelations.No one is safe!
Right, Doc House???
 
Having had a night to sleep on this, I still think it is a bad decision on the part of Rabobank and the Tour organizers. Let's think back to last year... we still don't know who won the Tour because the Floyd Landis decision is still in appeal - as it should be because of his right to due process. In Landis' case the cycling authorities have done everything correctly, even though it is taking an excessively long time to resolve.

This year the odds-on early favorite was kicked out because he failed a simple doping test that has a near-zero error rate. (What was Vino thinking?) Then information that casts a shadow of doubt over Rasmussen's integrity is publicly released the moment his victory is all but guaranteed, even though it was known by Rabobank long before the Tour started. This timing immediately raised the spectre of conspiracy for me and many others. But after further consideration I don't think it is. If Rasmussen didn't ultimately win the tour it would be second page news at best if his team fired him for breaking internal rules after the race, as they would have every right to do. But if he won... oh boy, lookout!

Look what happened to Landis' team. iShares pulled the pin. They're history even though his guilt has not yet been finally and completely determined. In this light, I can certainly understand why the leaders of team Rabobank would want to nip this in the bud to prevent their sponsor abandoning them after this Tour. Too bad for Rasmussen. Likewise, the last thing that the Tour wants is to create a situation where the true winner is not known two years in a row. That would be a PR nightmare, and they want to be seen as being 'tough on doping', so their support of the Rabobank decision comes as no surprise. Too bad for Rasmussen.

But the facts remain. Rasmussen's only transgression is not showing up for two out-of-comeptition dope tests. Their is no requirement for expulsion or any disciplanary action required by the UCI for this. If he misses a third one, they will ban him. The Danish governing body has ruled on this and has decided that he cannot represent his country in world or Olympic events. He is also accused of lying to his team management about his whereabouts for two days in June. And there is an unsubatantiated rumor about blood bags in 2002.

There is no evidence that he cheated. This is purely guilt by association, and to punish someone on that basis alone in any venue is morally and ethically reprehensible. It was the undoing of Mcarthy's communist witchhunt in the fifties. Have we learned nothing in fifty years? Team Rabobank and the Tour have allowed fear of lost funding and revenue to cloud their decision in this case. They are trying to save their image, but have done it serious damage instead. Rasmussen should still be in the race and the accusations should be investigated and ruled upon at a later date. This was a horribly misguided decision.
 
You are false. RM would have never started TDF because of missing just 1 (ONE) in 45 precedent days before a GT. (UCI rules)
 
hukkaloogey said:
But the facts remain. Rasmussen's only transgression is not showing up for two out-of-comeptition dope tests. Their is no requirement for expulsion or any disciplanary action required by the UCI for this.
>>>sighh<<< Read the articles again, please. Rasmussen hasn't been expelled or disciplined by the UCI for missing the dope tests. He was fired by his team for lying to them. As far as Rabo is concerned, this isn't an allegation. He admitted to it directly to a Rabo executive. Perhaps Rabo's decision was rash and overzealous, but an employer has the contractual right to kick you out the door if you do not perform your work in good faith. I don't like being lied to, so I can understand where Rabo is coming from.
 
um... read my post again, that's precisely what I said... Rabobank fired him, and the UCI did not punish him because he did not break their rules (notwithstanding the just mentioned 45-day rule of which I am not aware and cannot find). It was their prerogative to fire him because he broke internal rules. I think it was a bad decision.
 
hukkaloogey said:
um... read my post again, that's precisely what I said... Rabobank fired him, and the UCI did not punish him because he did not break their rules (notwithstanding the just mentioned 45-day rule of which I am not aware and cannot find). It was their prerogative to fire him because he broke internal rules. I think it was a bad decision.
I think there is more going on here than meets the eye.... Conspiracy theory if you will, i think RM was about to be busted, but Rabobank fired him first to avoid the negative PR that having a doped winner would bring to both the team and sponsors.. Let's face it money makes the tour go round.
 
warriorcliff77 said:
I think there is more going on here than meets the eye.... Conspiracy theory if you will, i think RM was about to be busted, but Rabobank fired him first to avoid the negative PR that having a doped winner would bring to both the team and sponsors.. Let's face it money makes the tour go round.
I agree, this was a pure CYA move by Rabobank. They are trying to limit their losses at this point.

There is a rumor that a 3rd positive was found after the Plateau-de-Beille, and one of the riders tested was Rasmussen.
 
I'm new to the forum and want to know if Rass or Vino have made any official statements...
 
Leni said:
I'm new to the forum and want to know if Rass or Vino have made any official statements...
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/25/sports/EU-SPT-CYC-Tour-de-France-Vinokourov.php

"It's a mistake. I never doped, that's not the way I see my profession," Vinokourov told Wednesday's edition of sports daily L'Equipe. I think it's a mistake in part due to my crash. I have spoken to the team doctors who had a hypothesis that there was an enormous amount of blood in my thighs, which could have led to my positive test.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/07/26/sofron126.xml
Rasmussen said Rabobank team manager Theo de Rooij was "mad".

In an interview with a Danish newspaper website, Rasmussen said: "It's the work of a desperate man who is at the end of his nerves. My boss is mad."

He also rejected claims by the former cyclist Davide Cassani, who is now an Italian television presenter, that he was in Italy last month when he had told his team he would be in Mexico. "I wasn't in Italy, no way. That's the story of one man who thinks he saw me. But there's not the slightest proof."
 
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