[Jffxljtw]

Rasmussen pulled from Tour

Overall leader fired from team hours after stage win

GOURETTE, France (AP) -- Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen was removed from the race by his team after winning Wednesday's stage, the biggest blow yet in cycling's doping-tainted premier event.

"Michael Rasmussen has been sent home for violating [the team's] internal rules," Rabobank team spokesman Jacob Bergsma told The Associated Press by phone.

The expulsion, which Bergsma said was ordered by the Dutch team sponsor, was linked to "incorrect" information that Rasmussen gave to the team's sports director over his whereabouts last month. Rasmussen missed random drug tests May 8 and June 28.

The 33-year-old rider, who won Wednesday's stage, had looked set to win the race, which ends Sunday in Paris. But Tour officials had questioned why he was allowed to take the start on July 7 in London, England.

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With Rasmussen out, Spanish rider Alberto Contador of the Discovery Channel team moved into the race lead.

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On Tuesday, star cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov was sent home after testing positive for a banned blood transfusion, and his team pulled out of the race.

Wednesday, it happened again when the Cofidis squad confirmed its rider Cristian Moreni of Italy had failed a doping test, prompted the withdrawal of the entire squad.

Full story: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/200...x.html?cnn=yes




Besides everything else, I just don't understand why these people continue doping when they know that their sport is under scrutiny and they will be tested regularly.

[cxddfrxc]

Frankly, because they are idiots. Though I don't believe all doping tests are perfect and can at times yield incorrect results (which French laboratories especially love the leak to the media) Vinokourov was a complete moron for thinking blood doping, when using another person's blood especially, would not get noticed by anyone.

I was talking about this with my sports-crazed uncle just this afternoon. We were both kind of amazed by how this sport, despite year-in-year-out doping scandals reducing it's credibility to sub-zero levels, remains commercially viable. Still, there are the first signs that that too is going South. German television pulled the Tour from their programming after the first doping case of the tour, only to put it back on a few days later. This should be the nail in the coffin, so to speak. It's a farce....

[LindaSmithXV]

Next thing you know LiLo will bey taking up cycling after her 999th stint in rehab...

[vipluka]

I don't know about the rest of you, but this kind of encourages me to take up cycling. From the looks of it, I could have a good shot at winning the Tour De France just by having clean pee!

[Sxscdergh]

I don't know about the rest of you, but this kind of encourages me to take up cycling. From the looks of it, I could have a good shot at winning the Tour De France just by having clean pee!

Word. They're dropping like flies. Eventually you gotta think that the last ones standing will be the dopeless ones, and they'll walk away with the disgraced prestigious title.

[werkeeque]

Word. They're dropping like flies. Eventually you gotta think that the last ones standing will be the dopeless ones, and they'll walk away with the disgraced prestigious title.

They dope themselves because THEY HAVE TO. Look at the figures: the race is 2,505 MILES LONG (3,550 Kms). They have to cover that in 20 stages (avg: 125 Miles/stage), with barely a day in between for rest. That is roughly the equivalent to TEN FORMULA ONE races (but on a bike, not a car). The Organizers of the tour have turned it into an impossible physical test, and therefore ALL the riders must juice themselves up, otherwise it can not be done. The organizers (again), when the Tour became huge money in the 80's, kept adding stages up to the now ridiculous length. I know most readers of TAT are not high performance athletes, but most of us are tennis players and know a thing or two about physical performance. Do this test: get on a stationary bike, set it at a speed of 30 MPH and see how long you can keep that pace.
I am not justifying the riders, but the Tour de France has to be the most impossible physical test ever. And if you think Lance Armstrong was not juiced, you are being naive. He was simply using chemicals for which the tests are not available (the BALCO Founder once claimed: "I can make a new steroid, for which there will not be a test for three years. By the time they find a test for that one, I will have a new one ready).

[cxddfrxc]

This just in...

Mayo joins Tour's list of shame



Spain's Iban Mayo has been suspended by the Saunier Duval team after failing a drugs test during the Tour de France.The mountain specialist tested positive for the banned blood-boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO) on 24 July, which was the Tour's final rest day.

Mayo, 29, is a team-mate of Britain's David Millar, an outspoken critic of cycling's drug culture since serving a two-year ban, also for using EPO.


More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/othe...ng/6923325.stm