Rabobank and Rasmussen are loosers in the war between ASO and UCI

[Cagerskov]

Timeline

2007-06-12 Rasmussen sends a letter to UCI telling that his whereabout has changed to Mexico untill June 25.

2007-06-29 Rasmussen receives last warning from UCI

2007-07-07 UCI lets Rasmussen start in TdF because they found their own rule 220 too harsh (if you receive a recorded warning less than 45 days before a big tour the biker is not allowed to start).

2007-07-15 The Italian commentator and former biker Cassani tells in the live transmission on RAI that he had met Rasmussen training in the Dolomites (in Italy) in rain 20 to 25 days ago (June 21 to 26).

2007-07-15 Rasmussen wins a stages and gets the yellow jersey.

2007-07-18 A reporter ask Rasmussen if he has a UCI warning and he admits he has one.

2007-07-20 DCU CEO Worre tells the confindetial information that Rasmussen has four warnings. Two from UCI and two from DCU.

2007-07-24 The Rabobank team says they back up Rasmussen 100% and they always know where there riders are.

2007-07-24 TdF president Clerc says that Rasmussen should not have been started in TdF

2007-07-25 Rasmussen wins another stage and with 3m10s ahead is very sure to win TdF aswell.

2007-07-25 Cassani says to a reporter that he had met Rasmussen June 13 or 14 in the Dolomites in Italy which is in the periode when Rasmussen said he was in Mexico.

2007-07-25 Clerc met with Rabobank's team director de Rooij telling him that Rasmussen should never have started in TdF.

2007-07-25 de Rooij takes Rasmussen out of TdF and at the same time fires him fra the Rabobank team because Rasmussen has not following the internal rules of the team. De Rooij also says that Rasmussen has admitted that he lied about his whereabouts to the team.

2007-07-26 Rasmussen says, that he hasn't admit that he was lying. He stated that he has always told he was in Mexico in that periode. Rasmussen also says that de Rooij was desperate and acted like a man on the edge of a nervous breakdown.

2007-07-28 Clerc confirm on a press conference that ASO has spoken with de Rooij just before Rasmussen was kicked out of TdF by Rabobank.

2007-07-28 In a press release UCI confirm that they let Rasmussen start in TdF because the found rule 220 too harsh when it was a warning based on a simple administrative problem. And that Rasmussen had been tested negative two times in the 45 days before TdF.

2007-07-28 de Rooij says he quit his Rabobank job just after TdF.

2007-07-30 The board of Rabobank starts an internal investigation about what happened on the team concerning the kicking out Rasmussen.

2007-07-31 Rabobank's team manager Erik Dekker says that as far as he knows only Rasmussen and de Rooij know what has been said in the team bus concerning kicking out Rasmussen.

My analyse
As I see it - Rabobank and Rasmussen are loosers in the war between ASO and UCI.

UCI lets Rasmussen start in TdF when their rule 220 says he can't because of a recorded warning less than 45 days before the start.

When ASO (the association behind TdF) found out that UCi has done that they began to say that Rasmussen should have started and they will not have a dirty rider winning the tour.

So when Rasmussen winning the last mountain stage and is 3m10s ahead and very likely will win TdF 2007 ASO has to change that. ASO meets with de Rooij and pressing him to kick out Rasmussen - what they have told him is not known - only that they don't want him to win.

De Rooij is now looking for a reason to kick Rasmussen out - and at the same time Cassani says to a reporter that Rasmussen was in Italy in the periode when Rasmussen said he was i Mexico. Now de Rooij has a reason to kick out Rasmussen (maybe he also have others reasons but we don't know).

ASO has not kicked Ramussen out so they don't have their hands in the dirt and cannot be legally be held responsible. Clever done by ASO.

So all in all it seems like a chicken offering committed by Rabobank under pressure from ASO caused by UCI giving permission to ride when their own rules says no (and UCI has the right to do so).

I am looking forward for more clarification - but right now this is how I see the case.

How do you see it?

Are there some information (facts) that I haven't considered?

[backinthesaddle]

My thoughts exactly. I think you nailed it!

Especially:


ASO has not kicked Ramussen out so they don't have their hands in the dirt and cannot be legally be held responsible. Clever done by ASO.

So all in all it seems like a chicken offering committed by Rabobank under pressure from ASO caused by UCI giving permission to ride when their own rules says no (and UCI has the right to do so).


Though I'm not sure about UCI having the right to waive it's own rules whenever it wants, is there some broad discretion in the UCI rulebook? Seems to me there's a big difference between formally changing rules in September and informally waiving them in June for a major contender based on plans to change them in September.

I hadn't seen about DeRooj leaving Rabo right after the race. Any idea where he went? (who offered him a new job?)

Also, just to clarify: most reports say Cassini saw in the Dolomites, but one report I read said he spoke to him (with Rasmussen telling him he'd been training for 8 hours that day) which gives a lot less possibility of error.

[Cagerskov]

I have also heard from commentators that Cassani spoke with Rasmussen. But I haven't seen an interview where Cassani said so.

I have seen the interview of Cassani where the reporter ask if he is sure that it was Rasmussen he saw.

Then Cassani looks down and around for some seconds before he said a very vague "si" and raises his head looking at the reporter.

[Sci-Fi]

Here's the quote I've read:

"Rasmussen was undone by the testimony of Davide Cassani, a former Italian professional rider who is now a consultant with RAI, the Italian television network. Speaking on a program on July 15, before Rasmussen had the yellow jersey, Cassani paid tribute to the rider's dedication for training, saying that he had seen the Dane riding in the rain in the Dolomites in the middle of June.

"I said that to give a sympathetic picture of a rider who is so often criticized," Cassani said. "I said it to show that in some ways he was a model rider."

But a Danish journalist heard Cassani's comment and realized that Rasmussen was supposed to have been in Mexico at the time.

"Since then my telephone hasn't stopped ringing," Cassani said. " My simple remark really stirred things up." Rasmussen has told different stories to explain the 22 days that he was unavailable for out-of-competition drug testing."

and the most frequent published story:
http://sport.guardian.co.uk/tourdefrance2007/story/0,,2137300,00.html

ASO problem (politics?) with the UCI is not following their own rules or making exceptions wthout notifying the ASO of the situation. On the flip side, the ASO "could" require their own drug test 30-45 days before the TdF. Regardless if the cyclist doped the other 10 months of the year, they would be clean for the TdF. Would there be an unfair advantage? That answer isn't so clear.