Catching Up With Kyllingen and other stories

by Rant on January 22, 2009 · 21 comments

in Floyd Landis, Lance Armstrong, Michael Rasmussen

Been a while since the Michael Rasmussen story has graced this column. You remember Rasmussen, don’t you? The cyclist on track to win the 2007 Tour de France when he was unceremoniously removed from the race and fired by the Rabobank cycling team.

Well, the Danish cyclist appealed his case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and today they announced their decision. It didn’t go Rasmussen’s way. The CAS upheld the sanction imposed on him by Monaco’s cycling federation (FMC), after he missed two out-of-competition drug screenings during the 2007 season, and also provided the UCI with incorrect information on his whereabouts, which led to at least one other missed screening.

According to the CAS press release:

The CAS Panel considered that Michael Rasmussen violated articles 15.3 and 15.5 of the Anti-Doping Rules of the International Cycling Federation (UCI) because:

  • He did not announce his new location to the UCI which prevented the Danish Anti-Doping Agency (ADD) from making a doping control at his domicile on 6 April 2007;
  • He was too late in transmitting information relating to his new whereabouts in June 2007;
  • He voluntarily transmitted erroneous whereabouts information which prevented the ADD from making a doping control on 21 June 2007.

The full decision in the Rasmussen case, according the the CAS press release, is published in French and available on the CAS web site. Anyone who has a good grasp of written French, or who is willing to run the full award through a translation program, can get a better idea of the panel’s reasoning.

There are a couple of things that I have questions about. First, who does the anti-doping testing for FMC? Do they hire people to collect the samples and then send them to various WADA-accredited labs? Monaco is a very tiny country, after all. I’d be very surprised to learn that they had not only an anti-doping agency, but a lab to do the analysis within their one square mile.

And I’d also like to see how the panel determined that Anti-Doping Denmark (ADD), the Danish anti-doping agency, had jurisdiction over Rasmussen. Yes, he’s a citizen of Denmark. But he was licensed in Monaco and living in Italy at the time. I’d understand it more if Rasmussen was licensed through the Danish Cycling Union, rather than FMC.

Now, none of that is to excuse what Rasmussen did. If he broke the rules, and if the rules were clear, then he deserves a sanction. Rasmussen did eventually admit that he had lied about his whereabouts, in part, he said, due to personal problems he was dealing with. Rasmussen won a case against his former employers for wrongful dismissal, because a court in Holland determined that the team was aware of his activities and whereabouts in the run-up to the 2007 Tour. The Danish climber, nicknamed “the chicken” (kyllingen in Danish), was awarded €665,000, or about $1.1 million. Rasmussen had sued his former team for moe than $8 million, however.

Today’s decision let the FMC’s original decision from last June stand. Rasmussen won’t be able to compete again until late July. Meaning, he won’t get to race the Tour this year. Assuming that any team wants to hire him. Nothing is a given these days, especially the way the economy is going.

Rarin’ To Go

In about a week’s time, Floyd Landis will be free to start competing again. When he makes his return to the peloton during the Tour of California, he will be riding for Team OUCH, a domestic squad that will be competing throughout North America for the 2009 cycling season. As Landis has told the Associated Press, and Sal Ruibal of USA Today, he can’t wait to get back into the action. Ruibal, who wrote the most complete story that I’ve seen, reports:

“I feel really good and I’m working hard to stay in shape,” [Landis] told USA TODAY in a Thursday morning interview. “It’s good to have some goals and to put all that stuff behind me.”

As he prepares for his comeback, Landis has been keeping an eye on at least one of the riders he will face off against in California: Lance Armstrong, who is on a comeback tour of his own. Landis sounds a positive note on the return of his former teammate, and former captain.

“[Lance’s] comeback is good for the sport,” he says. “I’ve been following (the Tour Down Under) and you know, he’s just one of 200 other cyclists there. But I’m getting an idea of his condition by how he’s doing in the Australian race.”

Landis goes on to offer a brief assessment of Armstrong in relation to all other cyclists.

“Lance is on a whole different level,” he says. “We’re not sponsored by Kazakhstan. Other than Lance, the rest of pro cycling is pretty much blue-collar guys.”

And, of course, Landis has a few things to say about the anti-doping testers and that whole system. The Cliff’s Notes version? He doesn’t have much faith in them. Read Ruibal’s article to get the full scoop. Ruibal closes with a similar comment to the one Landis gave the Associated Press. In Ruibal’s story, Landis says:

“I’m not on a mission to make some kind of statement … I enjoy bike racing and being around a team that fights hard for each other. I’m not out to save the world.”

Or, as The Associated Press reports:

“This isn’t some kind of statement to shut down the critics or any kind of changing-the-world project of mine,” Landis said. “This is me doing what I’ve trained myself to do for the last 15 years, and I hope that the people that follow bike racing get a better show than what they’ve had the last couple years.”

And, he also told the AP:

“In my mind, [the events of the last two years are] already behind me … I’m not dwelling on that at all.”

Sounds good to me. Allez Floyd. Go get `em.

Because It Was There

As I mentioned in a comment to the previous post, ESPN.com’s Bonnie D. Ford wrote another excellent piece on Lance Armstrong’s return to cycling, in addition to her interview with the seven-time Tour winner last fall. This time, the story is not a one-on-one interview, however. It’s more of an analysis of Armstrong. The work he does, the things he’s accomplished outside of cycling (and may yet accomplish, if he chooses to go into politics), and the inspiration that he’s brought to fellow cancer survivors throughout the world.

I could grab a bunch of quotes to give a flavor of the article, but really, it’s best read from start to finish — not in chunks here and there. Armstrong is pictured as either a monk or some dark knight in the lead photo for the piece, which was shot by Jim Herrington. It’s a haunting image that can lend itself to many feelings and interpretations, much like the man. The one quote I’ll give you from the article (because it dovetails well with the photo I’m talking about) is this:

Lance Armstrong’s vast audience can be broken down a few ways. There are cancer survivors and their families who draw comfort and inspiration from him, hard-core cycling fans who parse his accomplishments and star watchers who track his A-list movements. There are people who have followed every twist of his career and those who paid no attention outside of three weeks each July.

There are those who believe him when he says he never used performance-enhancing drugs and those who don’t. Some maintain his empire has been built on deceit. Some don’t care one way or the other, reasoning that it was an outlaw era in cycling anyway, or preferring to keep sports in the realm of escapism rather than moral relativism.

When you look at that image on the top of the page, your reaction will say as much about you and what you think of Lance Armstrong as it will about who Lance Armstrong is. Truth be told, he’s a bit of an enigma. No matter which side of the fence you’re on about whether he’s used performance enhancing drugs, we each see what we want to see, based on our beliefs and how we interpret “the evidence.” For some, he’s an incredibly gifted athlete who works harder than everyone else. For others, he’s a darker character, who will do whatever it takes to win. Herrington’s photo captures all of that, just as Bonnie Ford’s article captures all (or all that can be captured) of the various sides of Lance Armstrong and his comeback tour. Why is Lance coming back to cycling? As the headline to Bonnie Ford’s article answers: Why not?

Thomas A. Fine January 23, 2009 at 1:11 am

Rasmussin was bound to lose regardless of evidence. His case was too big and important to let justice triumph over message. Not quite Floyd-sized, but still a high-profile case where WADA and TdF reputations come into play.

It’s great to hear from Floyd again. I think it was probably good for him to “go dark”, and just focus his energy where it was needed. Did you see the Bicycling article too? It’s like it was Floyd Landis day.

Today Lance dropped trou’ for doping control for the 14th time I think. If Percival Lowell could find canals on Mars, and convince scores of others that they saw them too, then it seems likely that the anti-doping people have a solid chance of finding what they’re looking for. One does wonder if they’ve made any changes in how they’re dealing with his samples, in light of the whole Floyd thing. On the one hand, they have to know that Lance has resources to fight a positive that Floyd could never hope for. On the other, they have the reality that “victory” comes with the mere announcement of a positive test, especially if they can get some scientific sock puppet to say it was “foolproof”.

I’ve gotta say Lance is using twitter to great advantage. It’s a powerful PR tool. It’s certainly worked it’s magic raising my interest level. Soon he’ll be just as popular as… Wil Wheaton.

At any rate, I’m looking forward to less speculating and more spectating. I’ll be vacationing with my family in southern California in a few weeks. I’m hoping to make it to stage 7 of the Tour of California, in Pasadena. I’ll be rooting for Lance to come in a close second behind Floyd (although the stage will more than likely end with a bunch sprint – the big hill is a long way from the end).

tom

Rant January 23, 2009 at 8:21 am

Tom,
I’m inclined to agree, Rasmussen was pretty much destined to lose his appeal. Still, I’d like to see the panel’s reasoning behind it. There is at least one question I’d like to see answered: Does an athlete’s home country’s sports federation and their anti-doping agency have any jurisdiction if the athlete is licensed through another country’s sports federation? If so, then there may be a number of athletes who might wish to rethink getting licensed in places like Monaco.
Haven’t seen the Bicycling article, yet. I’ll have to go take a look when I get a chance. Went and took a look at the Bicycling article. Wish I’d seen it before writing the post, I could have used one or two of those quotes. Good to hear from Floyd and that he’s looking forward to getting back on the bike.
I agree, Lance is using twitter very well. Definitely a powerful PR tool and a great way to “connect” with his fans.
Sounds like you’ve got a good vacation planned. I’m sorry I won’t be seeing Floyd’s return to action in person. Later in the year, when he’s racing closer to where I live, I’m going to take some time to head out to the races.

karuna January 23, 2009 at 9:14 am

I agree with Thomas, Rasmussen did not stand a chance against the accusations.
Too many people would lose face. The UCI for instance.

To give a few examples:
-The jurisdiction of the ADD is (as far as I know) solely on the fact that Rasmussen had agreed to controls from the ADD because he wanted to be in the national team again (he wanted to Beiing mountain biking).
That he also could get a control in Italy was not something that was in fact all that natural since according to the UCI rules the ADD had no jurisdiction.
The UCI said nothing, the ADD just claimed jurisdiction and that was it.
-The warning of the ADD for the 6th of April 2007 was giving under far more tighter rules then the UCI used at that time.
Besides that, the ADD warning was the first send to the UCI from a national AD. TheUCI didn’t know what to do with it and did nothing at the time.
It somehow went from a warning from the ADD from 2007 to a recorded warning from the UCI somewhere in 2008 0r so.
-Rasmussen could get controls from: Italy (he lives there), the UCI, his team, Monaco (they don’t do controls but they could organize it through Italy and (according to the ADD) the ADD.
Nice rules. (I would get crazy and could be tempted to avoid this all together. Not good, but that was how it was at that time).
And so on.

The evidence is fabricated to a point where he had 3 recorded warnings with reasons that could be applied but not being applied at the time it all happened.

What Rasmussen did was not good but in my eyes he comes pretty close to being victimized.
🙂

Rant January 23, 2009 at 9:32 am

Karuna,
Good to hear from you again. I’ve always thought that something didn’t sound right about the case against Rasmussen. That’s why I’m curious about how ADD came to have jurisdiction over him. Without that “warning,” I’m not sure that they would have had enough of a case to sanction the Chicken. Although I don’t think he should have lied about his whereabouts to the UCI, and that may have led to a missed test, I’m not entirely sure that he’s guilty of anything other than being stupid in his dealings with the authorities.

Boss January 23, 2009 at 9:57 am

Priceless comments from McQuaid re Schumacher:

Despite the positive tests, Schumacher has continued to insist he did nothing wrong and that he is entitled to both a racing licence and his contract with Quick Step. It would appear that until the AFLD makes a decision, the UCI may not be able to prevent the former from happening.

“In the meantime, strictly speaking — as in proper civil law — everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” McQuaid said.

There are douchebags and then there is Paddy McDouche-a-lot.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/jan09/jan23news2

Re Landis, the stories that have now gone back to the “elevated testosterone” charge is also highly entertaining. Lazy journalism is an ugly, mutant cousin of those who take the profession seriously and it has reared its ugly head again.

karuna January 25, 2009 at 2:38 am

Rant

My French is not good enough to understand what the CAS said about the jurisdiction of the ADD.
I think the whole key there is if the ADD had jurisdiction to test him in ITALY. That they had jurisdiction to test him when he was in Danmark sounds reasonable to me since he applied for the national team. But acording the UCI rules you could say that they should have had special permission from that same UCI to test him in Italy.
The Vogelzang rapport stated that the ADD just claimed they had jurisdiction.
I am (still) curious so I will try to figure it out.

I agree with you that Rasmussen shouldn’t have lied. And maybe there is more to it then just being stupid in informing the authorities.
But given the fact that there is no proof of any doping I think the rules are being mixed or used in a way was certainly not in favor of Rasmussen.

I hope he will find a team so he can race again.

ludwig January 25, 2009 at 12:47 pm

I’m not sure anyone would like the consequences for cycling if Rasmussen were vindicated. He humiliated the Tour. If he were to get off on a technicality, anyone who claims the Tour has doping under control looks ridiculous.

Either way there doesn’t seem to be any disagreement that Rasmussen broke the rules and lied to the authorities. The disagreement seems to be over the suspension.

I like Rasmussen and I can sympathize with the let-down he must have experienced coming so close to Tour victory. Maybe he deserves to be considered the real winner. Maybe not. Either way he took a risk and it went bad–everybody has to live with the consequences.

William Schart January 25, 2009 at 1:47 pm

I am wondering under what circumstances Ras was allowed to license in Monaco. Can someone simply decide to register with whatever country he wishes? As far as I know, Ras had no connection with Monaco, but correct me if I am wrong.

However, all this points out the confusion that arises because of the multiple and overlapping jurisdictions involved in an international sport like cycling. A rider can have citizenship in one country, live in another, apparently be registered in a 3rd, ride for a team based in a 4th in a race largely in a 5th which makes limited forays into even more countries. What rules apply? Apparently, whatever rules that WADA/UCI want in order to achieve the outcome they wish. Of course, and rider involved would want to use the rules that would be most favorable to his case, but lacks the power to make that so.

Of course, if people had been on top of things immediately prior to the TdF, Ras would have not been allowed to start. Or better, if he had been forthcoming about his whereabouts and submitted to the tests we might have had a different winner – Ras. Or he would have faced doping charges from an AAF.

I can’t really feel too sorry for him. Whatever the reason, he played fast and loose with the rules and lost.

karuna January 25, 2009 at 4:46 pm

William
As far as I know did Ras have a license of Monaco because he officially lived there. Tax reasons. Since he officially lived there he followed the UCI rules by having a license in Monaco.

I agree that he gambled and lost. He said so himself.
He was not a big fan of all those rules and I guess he just tried to avoid them all and most likely the ADD because the ADD was more strict then the UCI.

I think what got me on his side was the hypocrisy of it all.
When you read the Vogelzang rapport it is obvious that the whole system of the whereabouts was a mess at the time.
Riders of the Rabobank said it; nobody was taken it seriously. The teamleaders of the Rabobank were not taken it seriously. Breukink knew where Ras was at the time he was supposed to be in Mexico. I will not get into that, but it is undeniable that Breukink knew at some point before the TDF. They just didn’t think it was a big deal and also didn’t expect it to come out.
The UCI did not seem to be taken it seriously . They had one person to do all the work.
The whole rules settings about national AD was as unclear as possible. Everybody just did something. No coordination whatsoever.
Under these circumstances Ras most likely didn’t feel he was taken a big risk by trying to avoid testing altogether.
What Ras underestimated ofcourse was the impact it could have when it did come out.

For the lying he should be punished but with the circumstances let out of the whole ruling, all the responsibility was put on his plate.
Everybody else than Ras came out on top. Nobody else took any responsibility. The Rabobank just denied any responsibility up to when it sounded absolutely ridiculous. Nobody (in the Netherlands that is) that there was no knowledge of what Ras did. Nobody did hold them responsible to their part of the situation.
The UCI just started the attack against Ras, no word about their failures, shouting and yelling in the Danish press about the scum back Ras was. The UCI climbed on a moral horse which was way to high for them. Nobody to hold the UCI accountable for their failures.

So I also I don’t agree with Ludwig that Ras humiliated the TDF. The TDF did that just as hard to let the race take place when they knew there was doping going on. And they knew already simply by looking at the general overall HT values of the years before. They made themselfs vulnerable by doing so.
It was not before there where scandals that the TDF started to scream hell.
The UCI let themselves be overwhelmed by the WADA with a system they couldn’t fully install.
Everything is being done to make it LOOK GOOD.
There was a paper reality which was not the actual reality the riders had to work with.
Ras is judged on the paper reality.
In actual reality he did something that was probably done by a lot of the riders. They made the best out of a mess and (ofcourse) they did that in an opportunistic way.

The Vogelzang rapport concluded that the Rabobank should not have let Ras race the 2007 TDF. That conclusion came solely on the claim of the ADD that they had jurisdiction to test him AND the paper reality that national ADA rapport their missed test to the UCI.
When the Vogelzang rapport came out the UCI still didn’t know what to do with that missed test of the ADD. At first they said it should not be fair to Ras because they didn’t have a clue how other national ADA were dealing with that. There could have been 20 riders with the same amount of warning without the UCI knowing it.
But now the warnings of the ADD is THE proof in the CAS findings.
Is that kind of opportunistic juggling with the rules something Ras could have anticipated on?

Ras was stupid, but he was not the only one, he had companions on high places.
The thing is that these “companions” have more power to let their mistakes disappear and so Ras is the (only) one to be punished. The UCI seem to have used the strategy: “˜let us punish him hard so he has nothing to say until everybody forgot about him’.

Theresa January 25, 2009 at 8:17 pm

Regarding Rasmussen, I agree with karuna.

But, regarding Bonnie Ford’s article; I started to read it, and didn’t have time to finish at the time. But, I spent most of the time staring at the photo of Lance. Rant, I thought to myself that they were trying to make him appear as a monk. But, I don’t see a monk, at all. I see something darker. And then when he appears normal and friendly, as in the press at the Tour down Under, I wonder how this man can make me uncomfortable. It’s because of him, that we got to see any of the race. And his presence brings more attention to cycling, which is wonderful. But, I still cannot feel as starstruck as I was in 04. Enigma is a good word.

I can hardly wait to see Floyd in a race again!!! I’ve never waivered in my support for him.

Rant January 25, 2009 at 11:16 pm

ludwig,
True, we all have to live with the consequences of the choices we make. Michael Rasmussen’s story is a very good cautionary tale with that as its moral.
Theresa,
I’ve always thought Lance was an enigma. Not in a bad sense, mind you. Just that there’s something about him that’s unknowable, which makes him a bit of a puzzle. Gotta say, I’m excited to see Floyd back in the peloton. Not sure what races I’ll be able to attend, but I’ll definitely be out for the Superweek races that are close to home (one is close enough that I could take an easy spin on my bike to get there). I’m hoping to be able to see him racing in a few other locations, too. But I’m not going to jinx my chances by saying anything out loud right now… 🙂

ludwig January 26, 2009 at 3:52 am

Kuruna,

I certainly agree that Breukink ought to be held equally responsible. Breukink and other Rabobank team members knew Rasmussen lied to the authorities. Even worse, they knew Rasmussen was lying to the press as he wore the yellow jersey.

That said, the one who tells the lies has to bear the primary responsibility and accept that he might become the scapegoat. Within an imperfect system, it doesn’t matter if he wasn’t the only one cheating if the others don’t get caught.

Certainly the authorities want to paper over reality and make it “look good”, but I’m not convinced that penalties in cases like this won’t help dissuade others from making the same mistake. In any case it would definitely look much worse if guys like Rasmussen got away with impunity.

karuna January 27, 2009 at 7:37 am

Ludwig
I think you are right. i can see why they deal with this as they do.
But for me it is a choice.
Do you want to look good and strong and make a scape goat in the process or do you want to stay fair to others and honest about your own dealing of things (Rabo, UCI).
You mentioned the advantages of the first.
I choose the second and think that there is something to say for that too.
Fairness and honesty is a good example too. It could motivate others to do the same. There is more trust in the authotities when you stay fair and honest.
It is less confusing in a way for the fans. It’s pushes the riders less into secrecy. It could motivate a few into ‘we’ instead of ‘I’. Denial is not the example you put forward, which is very refreshing.
I probably could think of a few more when I take the time to do so.
But in short I would like to say that it seems there is no other way to go about a situation as with Ras But I think there is.
It is a choice.
And I wish there was more awarness of that.

Jean C January 27, 2009 at 8:06 am

Happy New Year, it’s a bit late but still January,

Nothing seems have changed. And probably doping will come back. Thanks Mr McQuaid to help the come-back of all doping under the rug.

Karuna,

If you want to have a fair system you have to change the whole UCI management!
Since a while we can see how they act.

I invite you to read Conte’s words
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympics/athletics/7403158.stm

Do you believe that Rasmussen was clean? And never tried to take an advantage by false whereabouts?

Paul R January 27, 2009 at 7:02 pm

Karuna

Was lying about his location Rasmussen’s attempt to hide an extra-marital affair?
His Mexican wife was in Mexico, and he was having a fling with an Italian, maybe ex-mountainbike racer?
If so, this tragedy was partially caused by the basest of motives, illicit love.
The three way jurisdictional battle, compounded by his lies, makes me wonder if he had come clean about the affair earlier, held up the complicated out-of-competition testing to public scrutiny, whether he might have been able to stay in the TdF? He never tested positive after all; we have just assumed he was hiding from the testers.

And Floyd’s return.
He got screwed by shitty lab work. They stole a legitimate victory from him.
He was possessed by rage up till last year. I think it is still there, but channeled. He is hoping for vengance. Remember, he is one for one in ToC races!

And the second coming?
LA is an amazing, complicated, beguiling character. If nothing else, he has proved to be sincere in his cancer fight efforts. I thought that would be a BS cover for further ego aggrandizement but he has proved me wrong.
OBW he’ll try to win the Giro but let Contador do all the heavy lifting in France, that is if the reopened Puerto file doesn’t ensnare Bert first.

William Schart January 27, 2009 at 9:39 pm

Lance is undoubtedly an intense and driven person. He probably was before the cancer, he certainly had to be to overcome that and the after effects to get back into cycling and succeed the way he did. And he is not the type to be “just one of the boys”, a guy you’d sit down with and have a couple of beers with and shoot the s**t. At least that’s my impression of him. There’s that intense stare; it can make you uncomfortable.

I have been lucky to never had cancer, but I have known people who did. Some have succumbed after long battles. It can be a long, intense ordeal with much pain, both from the disease itself as well as the treatments. Chemotherapy is essentially the process of giving you enough poison to kill the cancer without totally killing you, and I also understand that some of the drugs used to build up the blood can be painful too. Whatever LA’s ethics are vis-a-vis cycling, I am quite sure he is most sincere in his fight against cancer.

karuna January 28, 2009 at 6:12 am

Jean C

Happy new year to you too!

Thanks for the link, it is interesting.
When you see this it is very difficult not to think that the scene of sports, everything included, athletes, helpers, organizers, doctors etc are imprisoned by their desire for fame and money.
We silly fans think it is about sport. Ehh, well, do we?
No, fans have their own desire too. Through identification, THE most seen motive for sports fans, we are in it too.

Because the fans don’t really want to know the truth the authorities come (I think) with these (in my eyes) silly ways of dealing with cases like Rasmussen.
Ludwig in the post before gives a good explanation why that strategy is chosen.

I agree that the UCI is certainly ripe for chance. But I don’t think it is only them that need to change. Organizers were hypocrite for too long too.
Fans like to shut out reality (reality according Conte, which I believe) to much too.
It is not that simple and certainly not just one man or organization’s fault.

Do I think Rasmussen was clean? I have no idea.
I hold the idea that about 80% of the entire peloton has at some time in their carrier used something. For short or longer times. I do think Rasmussen is one of them.
When I really try to look objective I think I have no reason to think that. It is a feeling based on the idea that he is an opportunist and very intelligent.
I was surprised to see his blood levels (low) in de TDF compared to the average blood levels of all riders.
But I don’t know and I don’t care in this case.
It has nothing to do with if he is used as a scapegoat. When you really start punishing riders just because you THINK he doped we are way off base to my opinion.

Paul R
The rumors were like you say. It has never been confirmed by Rasmussen. Friends of him have said in the Danish press that there were marital problems before.

At the 29th of June of 2007 when that letter of the UCI arrived the Rabo (Theo de Rooy) knew about his lying.
The big mistake at that time was maybe that de Rooy never really tried to figure out what was going on with Rasmussen and Rasmussen didn’t tell.
De Rooy was busy covering his tracks and Rasmussen thought it would not be a problem because there had never been dealings with warnings of national ADA’s and not be a punishment for whereabout thinks.
He also was sloppy because the warning of the 6th of April 2007 was something he had said he was going to fight but he didn’t do anything.
He showed a attitude of indifference. He was just not willing to spent much time on things he saw as not important.
When we look back that was stupid, certainly for an intelligent person as he is (I ones met him, he really seemed intelligent to me. But when you take a close look into the whole culture concerning the whereabouts that was going on in the peloton it really was one of indifference.
All Rabo riders expressed it. Also riders saying things in the Belgium media, said the same.
It was a mess, the UCI did not take it really serious themselves, they also couldn’t (no man power) and there a big diversity (Spanish riders getting a warning because of privacy rules for example) which felt so unjust that they must have thought it that they better do SOMETHING with those papers but it was not a big deal. Some Rabo rider expressed it like: We saw it as that the outside world needed to think it was all well organized (the “˜look good’ strategy).

In a better world with a whereabouts system that had works properly I think it would have been much better when de Rooy would have had much more contact with Rasmussen (that situation is now the case at the Rabo team) so he would have known a lot better what was going on in his life. That being the case I think it would have been better to go to the UCI with the whole story to see what they would say.
In a better working system the warnings of the ADD would have been anticipated and judges in a more reasonable way and especially: in a uniform way. It would have been clear that every warning was important and all national ADA would be transparent about what was happening etc.

There are people who say that when far more people were doing it that is no defense, you are still wrong. Of course. Of course.
But.
There is something like reasonable expectation.
An example. The Netherlands is a bicycle country. In the dark you need light on your bike. Says the law. There was no control over it so lots of people did ride their bike without light.
With the new government it was announced that from now on the law about the light on the bike was going to be followed again. Within days there were suddenly only a few without lights where it was the other way around before the announcement.
They did not have to make the announcement there was already a law. I am glad they did.

Maybe you understand what I am trying to say with this example in the Rasmussen case. The reasonable expectation was that he would not get into trouble. The rules said otherwise.
I understand when people say: a rule is a rule.
I rather have the other way, it feels far more fair and I think that is important too.

Jean C January 28, 2009 at 7:07 am

Karuna,

I do think that Rasmussen knew exactly what I was doing!

About his blood values, there is EPO which don’t increase hct levels but increase capacity of oxygen transportation, same number of transport agents but bigger.

He can use saline HIV to dilute blood.

Matt January 28, 2009 at 9:00 am

Jean, thanks for the link to the Conte article. WOW! I guess I never really thought it thru, how the doping system ACTUALLY works. (Guess I REALLY need to get on the ball and read Rant’s book). So it appears that MOST of the doping is going on in the offseason, if this article is ‘typical’ of a doping program. But if thats true, WHEN does an athlete who is going to be blood doping choose to have his blood drawn for storage (aka Operation Puerto)? I know from my own experience (a VERY recreational rider…roughly 2500 to 3000 miles a year) that when I donate blood I can MOST ASSUREDLY feel the difference for well over a week. But then my hemacrit is at best a 41 when I walk in the door to donate…not in the 50’s like the pros (THAT must really be something, I’d believe I’d feel like Superman!) It appears that a lot of the ‘doping’ is primarily to speed up recovery, rather than strength and endurance. VERY VERY interesting!

As to the RAS discussion, I didn’t want to admit my ignorance here earlier, but I guess I”ll fess up now. I had THOUGHT he was liscensed to race in Mexico (using his Mexican wife as his reason). I don’t ever recall hearing about Monaco. Also I had never heard anything about possible hanky-panky going on. I would think a pro cyclist wouldn’t have TIME nor ENERGY for that sort of thing. These guys pretty much train, eat and sleep for about 9 months of the year. They don’t walk up stairs if they can help it, or do any other unnecessary physical activity (from what I’ve read). A favorite qoute I recall reading: “why stand when you can sit, why sit when you can lie down”. (might have been from one of the Lance books, I can’t recall for sure). I do admit that it seems to be a real shame to have been pulled from the TDF when he was likely to win, when he was never even actually accused of doping. That would be a hard thing to live with. But he was convicted in the court of public opinion on heresay. So unlike Floyd (who I also believe was railroaded) RAS didn’t even GET his day in court. He just had the rug pulled out from under him mid-race.

Rant January 28, 2009 at 9:45 am

Matt,
Just so you know, there was a time when Rasmussen was licensed in Mexico. For at least a couple of years, I believe. I can’t remember the details, but I think he switched to being licensed in Monaco at the start of the 2007 season. One of the major Danish newspapers did an article on Rasmussen’s globe-trotting licensure a while back. Can’t remember if it was Politiken, Berlingske Tidende, or Jyllands Posten. But I believe one of them ran a pretty detailed story. If I find the reference this evening, I’ll post it.

karuna January 28, 2009 at 11:31 am

Jean C

About that EPO which increases the possibility of oxygen transport.
It is probably a stupid remark, but doesn’t the colour of the blood change when you use that?
Or the size of the red bloodcel?
The bloodcel has got to have something more. Iron? For the transportation?

About diluting. As far as I know that only works when you know when you are going to be tested because the dilution doesn’t stay long (as far as I know).
So that doesn’t help for unexpected testing and Rasmussen was tested unexpected during the Tour.

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