Returning to the fold

Well Lance is back, but not from a doping-related retirement, what about some of the "others"?

• Coming back later this year - The Chicken: Rasmussen told Cyclingnews last week that he was training to make his comeback this summer, but has not yet found a team.
• Returning soon - Landis and Basso: Floyd Landis received his chance to make his comeback to the sport in the USA's biggest race when organisers of the Amgen Tour of California announced that they had included Landis' OUCH Pro Cycling team on the list of invited teams on Thursday. Landis will toe the line alongside fellow returnees Lance Armstrong and Ivan Basso at the race's start in Sacramento on February 14.
• Returning later than expected - Nathan "slimming tips" O'Neill: The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) announced Wednesday that the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) Appeals Board in Switzerland overturned the original decision to lessen the suspension of Australian cyclist Nathan O'Neill from 24 months to 15 months, returning the ban to the maximum of two years and keeping O'Neill out of racing until June of 2010.
  

Rasmussen gets his due

Will he cop it sweet or appeal? Do we care anymore? Rasmussen gets 2 years for telling fibs about where he was, or wasn't... Nearly one year after he was forced to leave the Tour de France while wearing the race leader's maillot jaune, Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen has been suspended for two years for missing out-of-competition doping controls prior to the race.

Still, it did make for an interesting, if confused, L eTour. It's hard to believe Landis won and lost 2 years ago, and Rasmussen was pulled out just a year ago. This year, of course, we have Boonen sidelined (even if his drink was spiked) and Contador sitting it out 'cause Astana is a bad word around Paris. Cross your fingers, it'll all start again soon enough.

Too good to resist...

Ahh, these stories are just too good to pass up...

• I went to the fortune teller, to have my fortune read... oh, VDB, where next dude?? The Belgian was released by Team Mitsubishi-Jartazi last week. He has ridden very little this season, and most recently had been named as a customer of gang drug dealers. If the 33 year-old is unable to come back on his bike, he may have a new career as a fortune teller. In the TV show, which was filmed before Sunday's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he accurately predicted that Alejandro Valverde would win the race. According to sportwereld.be, he had also predicted the winners in the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Stijn Devolder), Paris-Roubaix (Tom Boonen) and the Amstel Gold Race (Damiano Cunego), missing only on Milano-Sanremo, where he picked Filippo Pozzato instead of Fabian Cancellara.
• Can't buy me love... Sunday was the deadline for Rabobank and Michael Rasmussen to settle their differences, following the Dutch team throwing out the Danish rider of its team during last year's Tour de France.
• It's a question of credibility? Sure is! "It is a question of credibility," Maertens continued. "We are working already since October last year on a new team. By accepting Vino in the team, we would have to start all over again. We proved already this season – unfortunately some organisers don't see it – that our team works super professionally and clean. We want to keep that." Astana has not been invited this season to any races sponsored by the ASO, including the Tour de France.

It would be cruel to suggest that VDB will not find yet another team to disappoint, however someone must be cruel to be kind at some point, surely? And Rasmussen is holding out for more money, one presumes. One can only hope he has a strong case. Finally there's Vino, in the wings, waiting to come back. I doubt it.

Rabo riders knew Chicken fibbed, and more

Rasmussen meets the journalist who revealed "the lie that sank the ship" and a teammate admits the Rabo riders knew that "Chicken" wasn't in Mexico when he said he was. Just to remind you, Chicken was leading the biggest bike race in the world when his team pulled him from the race for his little white lie. On the basis that it "probably" covered up a bigger lie, of course, and one that remains unproven and contested by Rasmussen. Oh for some truth and substance, eh?

On the same program where Van Heeswijk made his claims, Rasmussen met Cassani again for the first time since last year's fallout. Cassani expressed his remorse for revealing Rasmussen's lie to the public, "I cried that evening that they sent you home. I felt terrible. I felt as if I had stabbed you in the back," the Italian said. Rasmussen didn't blame him, saying, "I know who sent me home. You told your story in good faith."

Rasmussen to sue?

Can you really blame him? Imagine leading the biggest event in world cycling, the world at your feet, eyes on the prize and... nothing. It all gets snatched away over a technicality. Like who really cares if you have said you were somewhere you actually weren't? It's just a detail. Life is full of details. It doesn't mean you doped, does it? Innuendo and suspicion is not enough, nor little white lies over location. And it was not proved that he doped. To have the opportunity in front of you and to be stripped of all chance - and dropped from your team is heartless, cruel and way over the top. It was an over-reaction and demands retribution. Well 'Chicken' Rasmussen must think so, anyway: Michael Rasmussen is apparently planning to take Team Rabobank to court to contest his withdrawal from the Tour de France and his dismissal from the team this summer. The 33 year-old Dane has hired Dutch lawyers, who have confirmed to the Belga press agency that they have been engaged. Funny word, 'engaged'. Hope they have a nice life together. Oh well.

Ullrich, Pevanage, D'Hont... Rasmussen... et al

What can one add? Via CyclingNews...

On Jan and T-Mobile: Circumstantial? Unverified? Fiction?
In the recordings, Pevenage allegedly said that he visited Ullrich during a training session on Mallorca in February of this year. Ullrich then said that he was there with former teammates Andeas Klöden and Matthias Kessler, both of whom rode for Team Astana. Ullrich is said to have told Pevenage that he wanted to end his career because he didn't want "to take any more risks." Ullrich added that he was at the same hotel as his former teammates, "and I tell you, they were all there, the most important of them are still using the same stuff, EPO and all of that . Nothing has changed."

On Rasmussen: minor offence or major coverup?
Michael Rasmussen purposely lied about his whereabouts in the period before the Tour de France, making himself unavailable for doping controls, an independent committee announced on Monday in Utrecht, Holland. Rabobank Team Manager Theo de Rooij was right to remove the cyclist from the race, it said, but he should never have started in the first place. The 33 year-old Dane was sent home following stage 16 to the Col d'Aubisque.

Diggin' the dirt: Rasmussen and CSC, 2002

If you look long enough and hard enough you start to see stuff you missed before. Reported via CN:

"Danish broadcasting company DR Sporten and newspaper Jyllands-Posten have reported that Michael Rasmussen had slightly irregular blood profiles in 2002 when he was still with Team CSC. He had been scheduled to take part in the Giro della Provincia di Lucca but he was sent home by DS Johnny Weltz after an internal blood test showed irregularities. Back then, Rasmussen told Danish news agency Ritzau that his withdrawal was due to stomach troubles and a fever.