Cycling Commentary was about to post an entry about how Michael Rasmussen deserved to win the Tour de France after his amazing victory atop the Col D'Aubisque. Rasmussen showed himself to be the strongest man, surviving repeated attacks from Discovery Channel's Levi Leipheimer and Alberto Contador.
And then, Cyclingnews.com announed that Michael Rasmussen had been dropped from the Tour de France and sacked from his Rabobank team. To quote Phil Liggett, the English voice of cycling around the world from 2003, "What is this Tour de France?"
Apparently, this Tour de France is scandal-ridden as the UCI and race organizer ASO bump up their all out war on doping. First, T-Mobile's Sinkewitz was sacked for an out of competition positive test for exogenous testosterone. Then, yesterday, Vinokourov was booted for a positive test result for homologous blood transfusions. The entire Astana team was booted from the Tour along with Vino. Today, Moreni and his Cofidis team packed their bags as the result of Moreni's positive test for testosterone usage.
And now, Rasmussen has been sacked by his team for lying to them about his whereabouts during the month of June. Apparently, he was in Italy. He told them Mexico. Good-bye Michael Rasmussen. Good-bye yellow jersey.
What a shame! Cycling Commentary was just starting to warm-up to the guy, or at least respect him for his courage and strength in the mountains.
For a complete news report visit Velonews.com
This years TDF has revealed one thing.
You don't win TDF on the bike ... you win it of the bike - it's all about how you manage the media.
(try investigating the whereabouts and history of a young rider like Contador ... and Oops - he shows up in Operation Puerto ... wonder how the media would have reacted to that fact if Contador had had the yellow jersey for 9 days)
Cycling has to start all over.
Posted by: Alex | July 25, 2007 at 07:53 PM