I was reading this article at Velonews about Michael Rasmussen’s mindset about being “robbed” of the Tour in 2007. My favorite quote by Michael is “They committed one of the biggest injustices in sport history with me.” He went on to say “I was robbed. According to the rules at the time, they had no reason to take me out of the Tour. The rules that are in place today are different. They applied to me rules that were introduced in January 2009.”
I’ve known Michael Rasummusen for a long time. Way back before he got good racing MTB bikes, then after he got good. I thought he was a pretty nice guy when I was racing with him, but I don’t know. I don’t think guys that take drugs have to be assholes, they just have a flaw in their morals that allow them to cheat their friends. I haven’t spoken to him since he started racing road bikes though, so I don’t have any idea how he is nowadays mentally. But, this guy needs to rethink the time frame and time line of what occurred back in 2007 and he might be a little more at ease with his situation.
What he’s leaving out is the release of the story by Whitney Richards. Whitney is the guy that told Velonews about Michael trying to turn him into a drug mule and carry Hemopure over to Europe to him from Denver. I’m pretty sure that is what got the ball rolling, along with missing the mandatory out of competition tests and probably a multitude of other things that we’ll never be aware of.
Anyway, Michael being pissed off, maybe for the next “30-40 years”, seems a bit excessive considering he was guilty. Let me tell you, when the sport judges you and convicts you, then you have to be guilty. By that I mean, Michael Rasmussen could barely buy his way onto a professional team when his two year suspension finished. Compare that to any of these other guys, like Basso, Valverde, even Ricco etc. that all have jobs before their suspensions were even over. He is in bike race pro team purgatory and now is on the Rock Racing of the European peleton with his Christina Watches team.
It is sort of amazing that he is even racing. He doesn’t seem to be that much into it. Maybe the 5.6 million Euros that he’s looking to get from his lawsuit against Rabobank in the next few months might help with his bitterness. Money seems to do that some.
Michael looking all stylish.
if that is stylish I need to get to work,,,
O.J. is still looking for the real killer.
Sorry to take the other side of this, and I don’t really know about his guilt. But the way his removal happened, would never have stood up in a court of law, with the evidence they had. A truly big name rider would have never been removed like that. And as far as the flaw in morals statement, I can’t attest to what was happening in 2007, I was long removed from the pro peleton by then. But in the 80’s and early 90’s, hardly a man in the peleton was clean. I think Floyd said it best “I could either cheat, or be cheated. I chose to cheat”. And if all the guys you’re racing against are doping, is it really cheating to dope too?
aw man please take that picture down… yuck
Compare Rasmussen’s situation with Contador’s. I’m conveniently ignoring both riders intentions.
Rasmussen has no Adverse Analytical Finding (AAF aka positive) and didn’t post his whereabouts correctly and is ejected from the TdF never to be seen in the Pro peloton again. All that happened over maybe 7 days?
Contador gets an AAF for a drug that does not occur naturally and the UCI tries to hide it. We’re two years into a finding and Contador is welcome in any World Tour event. Meanwhile another clen positive, Li FuYu disappeared from the peloton never to be seen again, except in the Tour of China.
Not once does anyone question the process by which these events happened.
With those events as examples, why wouldn’t a rider dope? Either you cheat and do well and if in the very unlikely event you get an AAF, you will test your rank in the UCI’s secret popularity contest. If you ride clean, your days are numbered anyway.
I’m not justifying the cheating. I’m saying the UCI/IOC is encouraging the doping. Lying liars who cheat are welcome in the UCI’s road show.
That’s your definition of being stylish? The guy looks like an aids victim with a bad farmer’s tan!
I think you have reason to be upset about his comment in the article since you personnaly interacted with him and probably know more of crazy story and about the facts than the public.
But if you consider recently that Alex Rasmussen is still under contract with Garmin after violations of his wheareabouts and the Danish did not suspend him for some stupid paperwork…And also if noticed all the craps about Vaughters’s team is cleaner than clean and they are good enough to don’t dope in his team…
Just to said it is hard to know what are the rules and understand how to inforce the rules. Both are guilty but only one is ban.
So, considering that picture, we’re supposed to believe that he lied to the doping control about being in Mexico, and not Italy, because he was having a fling, and not to cheat at mountain training on the juice? As the Beastie Boys said, “Hey LA-DIES!”
see this 2009 story in the Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/othersports/article-1197551/Tour-fears-drug-cheat-increase-technology-reveals-new-results-18-months-line.html
“The threat of further drug revelations is hanging over the Tour de France after a Dutch cyclist was unmasked as a cheat more than 18 months after taking a banned substance.
The sample from Thomas Dekker was taken in December 2007 but tested positive for
blood-booster EPO only after advances in technology.
The fear now is that further retrospective analysis will uncover more cheats during the sport’s biggest event of the year, which began with a time trial yesterday in Monaco.
Last week’s revelations about Dekker were another blow for Belgian team Silence-Lotto, whose lead rider, Australian Cadel Evans, is tipped to be a prominent figure in this year’s Tour.
Silence-Lotto had signed Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl, King of the Mountains and third overall in the 2008 Tour, but he, too, failed an EPO-related drug test last October.
Kohl later announced his retirement from professional cycling and said: ‘It is impossible to win without doping.’
Kohl’s former manager, Stefan Matschiner, has since admitted to Belgian police his role in supplying EPO to his clients, who included athletes and triathletes.
Matschiner provides a glimpse into the world of cycling drug cheats. He also managed Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen who, while a team-mate of Dekker’s in the Rabobank team, was removed from the 2007 Tour de France for missing drug tests and lying about his whereabouts.
At the time of his removal, he was leading and seemed likely to win. Rasmussen was later linked with Hemopure, a chemical drug substitute designed for use on cattle.
The 2007 Tour also saw five riders banned for drug use and two teams eliminated for drug offences.
Last month, in a house in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, police found a blood centrifuge, essential for the use of EPO. They believe it belongs to Matschiner and also that it was used in connection with Dekker and many other athletes.”
Euro publication, Rouleur, did an in-depth interview of MR a year or so ago. The article made a convincing arguement that if MR had better publicity and/ or more fans (ala ‘Berto, Valverde, etc.), things may not have turned so sour for him. Apparently, being liked (or likable) is more important than being cheat or not. (Why did floyd go down, and not other “TDF winners”) One of the major things he was doing at the time of the interview (besides trainging) was PR. He participated in a Danish version of “Dancing w/ the Stars” TV show and made a concious effort to be liked by viewers.
@ Channel Zero: Rasmussen was not ejected from the Tour. His team pulled him out of it. That is why he is suing Rabobank, not Amaury Sports, the UCI, or WADA.
Seis,
I’m not saying ASO ejected him from their event.
The totally random outcomes to doping allegations and even AAF’s only encourage doping.