Rasmussen Pulled From Race
By Phil Liggett
July 25, 2007
So, the Tour de France is punishing into chaos tonight after both, the French Team and the Dutch Rabobank has packed their bags and headed home. The seal of 189 riders in London are now down to 135 to final days into Paris. Just what the millions of spectators will make of this, remains to be seen. They certainly will not see the race leader for the past 9 nine days and today’s stage winner, Michael Rasmussen. He was sacked by hi Rabobank Team for lying about his whereabouts when he failed to make himself available for the now well documented out of competition drug test.
His team manager, Theo de Rooy, said that Rasmussen had told him he had been in Mexico with his wife. We all know now that Rasmussen has been seen training in the Dolomite Mountains in Italy. The team then withdrew because of the Code of Ethics, which is now agreed within professional teams.
Earlier in the evening, I had also dreaded to go home for the same principles after former Italian Champion, Christian Moreni, had tested positive during a spot check on Stage 11 for synthetic testosterone. Moreni finished this afternoon and was then taken away by handcuffs by French police.
The new leader of the race will be young Spaniard, Alberto Contador by 1:53 ahead of Cadel Evans and Levi Leipheimer who is +56 seconds in third.
Thank heavens none of these three riders have ever been remotely suspected in dealing with drugs and could now turn out to be the race’s saviors.
Tomorrow is going to be a strange day.
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