I know we have a lot of cycling fans on this site (including kos), so here is a story which dismayed me the moment I saw it.
Tour de France Yellow Jersey holder and prohibitive favorite for the victory on Sunday after today's climb to the Col d’Aubisque has been pulled from the race by his Rabobank team for as yet unspecified reasons.
I am going to update this diary with some thoughts and comments, but the story was broken simultaneously - from sources I have checked, anyway - by cyclingnews and Spiegel.
The very brief cyclingnews story may be read here.
The Spiegel story (in German) with much more detail (as of two seconds ago), may be found here. Spiegel is reporting that Michael Rasmussen has been fired from the Rabobank team.
This is a catastrophe for the sport of bicycle racing. It does mean that Team Discovery will now have the leading rider in the race, Alberto Contador, of Spain.
Update 1: For those who have not been following the race, Rasmussen has been under pressure from the early days of the Tour because of ... anomalies in how he reported his whereabouts to his national federation. Professional cyclists are subject to drug tests at any time, including in the off-season. They have to keep their national federations informed at all times about their whereabouts, as the surprise tests may be conducted anywhere the cyclist travels.
If a cyclist misses three tests, the cyclist is considered to have been found positive for a doping violation, and would face the appropriate sanctions. Rasmussen, in the months prior to the Tour, missed two consecutive tests on two separate occasions. Apparently a successful test occurred between the two sets of missed tests. This news was not available prior to the start of the Tour, or, Tour organizers have stated, Rasmussen would not have been permitted to start the race.
What, precisely, has resulted in the action of his team in removing him from the race is not yet clear. The original cyclingnews report stated an Italian saw Rasmussen in the Dolomites when he had told his team he was in Mexico. Lying to one's team about one's whereabouts could certainly result in dismissal, but more information will have to be provided about that rumor.
Update 2. This Tour has already been rocked by two scandals. First, pre-race favorite Alexander Vinokourov suffered a positive doping test following his time trial victory in Stage 13. Vinokourov is said to have commited a homologous blood doping violation, which means that he allegedly used a blood transfusion from a third party to augment the oxygen-carrying capability of his blood. This is the same violation for which Tyler Hamilton was suspended.
Then, earlier today, Cristian Moreni of the the French team Cofidis had a positive test for testosterone, outside of biological norms.
In those two cases the teams of those respective riders also withdrew en masse from the Tour. The early report is that the Rabobank team will continue without Rasmussen. Tomorrow will tell the tale, there.
Update 3. The stakes for riders changed fairly dramatically prior to this year's Tour de France. Every rider scheduled by their teams to participate was obligated to sign an agreement pledging the forfeiture of a full year's salary if found guilty of a doping infraction. Failure to sign the statement was itself grounds for a rider's exclusion from the race, and according to reports, all 189 starters did sign the document. More information about that may be found here.