I temporarily interupt this investing blog to give my thoughts on Le Tour de France and the doping scandal du jour. I’ll get a stock pick posted later this morning as usual.
No yellow jersey is being worn today because Michael Rasmussen’s team finally wised up to the rules and fired him. He didn’t test positive so they were giving him the benefit of the doubt until they found he had lied about where he had been. When he missed two doping tests (riders have to notify the governing body where they will be 365 days a year ) he said he had been with his wife in Mexico and just made an innocent mistake. Later they found he had been in Italy and used that as the reason to fire him.
Contrary to some headlines, this is great for the sport. Riders who are cheating, like Vinokourav, are being caught. Those who avoid being caught red handed, like Rasmussen, are being punished for hiding from the testers. He could very well be innocent and could have never doped, but in a time when many suspect more than 99% of Le Tour riders in the past decade have used drugs Rasmussen deserves to be kicked out for lying. Actually he never should have started based on the rules. Interesting though, Le Tour officials didn’t kick him out, his own team fired him. That’s even better. No conspiracy theories allowed on this one.
All of this could have been avoided if the rules had been followed from the beginning. “In a case of a recorded warning or a missed test in a period of 45 days before the start of a Major Tour, the rider is not allowed to participate in that Tour,” UCI Cycling Regulations state.
I’m glad he’s out now, but we will always wonder what if… It’s likely that the top podium finishers would be the same either way, but you have to wonder how teams’ strategies would have changed without the “power” of Rasmussen to force his Rabobank team to lead as they have. I feel for his teammates who suffered for nothing.
I got the following quotes from a press conference from letour.com:
Patrice Clerc, the President of ASO, and Christian Prudhomme, the director of the Tour de France, have held a press conference in Pau before the start of the 17th stage.
Patrice Clerc: “We asked Rasmussen to explain to us in Pau with total transparency about the doubts about his preparation program and his whereabouts. The information offered by the rider was enough for his Rabobank team’s management to determine that he has been lying. That’s proof that he had no place at the Tour de France and that his behaviour demonstrates that there was a clear intention to cheat.”
Christian Prudhomme: “He should never have been at the start. But we would have known this in advance if we had full disclosure of all the elements relating to the rider. The UCI was aware of the matters [surrounding Rasmussen] as they had issued a warning letter on 29 June to Rasmussen. They should have allowed us to avoid this crisis.”
Patrice Clerc: “The big problem is that we have declared a unified fight against doping together with the UCI and the teams. This was not respected. We should have been informed about all the anomalies relating to Rasmussen.”
Christian Prudhomme: “Today the general classification is more credible than yesterday. The departure of Rasmussen is the best thing that has happened to us these past few days…”
“When I see riders sitting down to protest against doping at the start of the race, it’s completely different to what happened 10 years ago. It’s the absolute opposite because, at that time, they were protesting against the [doping] controls. That means that we have a part of the path [to a clean sport] has been forged.
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