The Scapegoat

[mountainrman]

Does the book explore why the UCI ignored it's rules about missing OOC's prior to a GT?

At the time the UCI had a rule, miss an OOC test in the month prior to a Grand Tour and you are not allowed to start that Tour. Rass missed 3. The UCI did nothing until the eve of the Tour when they had the Fed say that Ras would not ride the Olympics because of missed tests......why would they do this?

Earlier in 2007 Verbuggen and Armstrong had tried to buy the Tour. The price was too high and they were unable to raise the funds to meet the ASO's price. As chaos enveloped the Tour Patrice Clerc said that it was clear that Verburggen/Armstrong could not meet their price so they set out to devalue the asset as much as possible in order to lower the price......What better way then another doping controversy?

There is a huge amount of stuff in the book, and the only suggestion is read it -

At the time of that tour he only had two, not three warnings from either agency - it was only later legislation that allowed them to add the agencies together, so nobody has ever found any justification for excluding him at the time of the tour, indeed at least one of those was arguably wrongful process (the 2006)

He was also penalized for seemingly ridiculous things. At the time: the english and french translations of the rules on whereabouts were actually different - an error on the part of the federations! The english version allowed postal updates of location, the french version stated fax or email - Rasmussen read the english one. - they federations used the fact of a Rasmussen postal update on 4th of june (they said 8th ignoring the postmark) as evidence of rule breaking because they said "the french translation was correct, and sanctions would be based on that" - and yet he was unaware they were different. He got penalized for their mistake.

Whatever you think of Rasmussen is almost immaterial, it is an eyeopener on how "bad faith" is routinely in cycling justice - that is in one of its legal definitions - to enforce a rule selectively on some but not others in a unequal or discrimanatory fashion, but demonstrated the danes were out to get him.

In the end they did him for test evasion (which is supposed to be if when a tester comes, you hide to avoid a test) - using a whereabouts filing violation as evidence of evasion: That was a special they seem to have dreamed up for Rasmussen, not applied before or since to my knowledge The net effect of his going to UCI to openly explain all, was to lengthen his ban not shorten it, when cooperation is supposed to earn you brownie points They stripped his KOM in 2005 tour on seemingly no basis at all!

Many many riders in that peloton also had whereabouts violations that never ever became anything other than warnings quickly forgotten. So it was unequally applied. It was not just a Rasmussen thing, although to hear the media and federations you would have believed he was the only one.

My comment about the whole affair has nothing to do with whether Ramussens was doper or not. But how arbitrary the wheels of cycling injustice are.

You are either "liked" like hincapie, or "not liked" like Ramussen. And that more than anything else seems to determine the outcome. If you are "liked" they will bend every rule to let you off. If you are "not liked" they will twist every rule to apply to you, and if that does not satiate the blood lust, they will invent a few more, just for you. The likes of leipheimer get 6 months only for a career of continuous doping. Ramussen (whose VO2 max was measured at an incredible 80+ as a youth, way higher than lance, and whose haematocrit has always been only around 40 when tested give or take a couple, way lower than lance) -so at least has a defence in saying his talent was natural, yet was kicked out for life for having wrong whereabouts for a couple of weeks one june, then blacklisted for life presumably for taking legal action to say all this was "unfair", and he also had the temerity to win in court, which made him a marked man.

Who can defend the removal of his 2005? KOM title? I am unaware of any justification for that, because his first erroneous filing was Nov2006 early in the days of whereabouts - and they made a mistake on process in that!

That is not justice.

Read it race radio. Well worth the time.

 

[fmk_RoI]

There appears little verifiable substance to the austrian centrifuge story either, in fact the "motive" for him to get involved just does not stack up at all. He was a year into a two year ban. There was no purpose in blood doping at all for him then when he was alleged to be involved in that. The only loose connection was with someone using one of his houses. It was also a crime to do that in austria, yet the police did not find anything as far as I am aware.

Moller offers a believable explanation for that one in the book ...

 

[mountainrman]

Moller offers a believable explanation for that one in the book ...

Missed that explanation. Have to find that section again. He seemed to me to leave it as an unsubstantiated and unverifiable "question mark".

From other sources - I thought it was two levels of hearsay deep, not even one - that is Kohl had said, that someone he knew had heard, that Ramussen was involved. With so little evidence it is hard to know how editors justify the story on editorial ethics grounds.

 

[WinterRider]

There is a huge amount of stuff in the book, and the only suggestion is read it -

At the time of that tour he only had two, not three warnings from either agency - it was only later legislation that allowed them to add the agencies together, so nobody has ever found any justification for excluding him at the time of the tour, indeed at least one of those was arguably wrongful process (the 2006)

He was also penalized for seemingly ridiculous things. At the time: the english and french translations of the rules on whereabouts were actually different - an error on the part of the federations! The english version allowed postal updates of location, the french version stated fax or email - Rasmussen read the english one. - they federations used the fact of a Rasmussen postal update on 4th of june (they said 8th ignoring the postmark) as evidence of rule breaking because they said "the french translation was correct, and sanctions would be based on that" - and yet he was unaware they were different. He got penalized for their mistake.

Whatever you think of Rasmussen is almost immaterial, it is an eyeopener on how "bad faith" is routinely in cycling justice - that is in one of its legal definitions - to enforce a rule selectively on some but not others in a unequal or discrimanatory fashion, but demonstrated the danes were out to get him.

In the end they did him for test evasion (which is supposed to be if when a tester comes, you hide to avoid a test) - using a whereabouts filing violation as evidence of evasion: That was a special they seem to have dreamed up for Rasmussen, not applied before or since to my knowledge The net effect of his going to UCI to openly explain all, was to lengthen his ban not shorten it, when cooperation is supposed to earn you brownie points They stripped his KOM in 2005 tour on seemingly no basis at all!

Many many riders in that peloton also had whereabouts violations that never ever became anything other than warnings quickly forgotten. So it was unequally applied. It was not just a Rasmussen thing, although to hear the media and federations you would have believed he was the only one.

My comment about the whole affair has nothing to do with whether Ramussens was doper or not. But how arbitrary the wheels of cycling injustice are.

You are either "liked" like hincapie, or "not liked" like Ramussen. And that more than anything else seems to determine the outcome. If you are "liked" they will bend every rule to let you off. If you are "not liked" they will twist every rule to apply to you, and if that does not satiate the blood lust, they will invent a few more, just for you. The likes of leipheimer get 6 months only for a career of continuous doping. Ramussen (whose VO2 max was measured at an incredible 80+ as a youth, way higher than lance, and whose haematocrit has always been only around 40 when tested give or take a couple, way lower than lance) -so at least has a defence in saying his talent was natural, yet was kicked out for life for having wrong whereabouts for a couple of weeks one june, then blacklisted for life presumably for taking legal action to say all this was "unfair", and he also had the temerity to win in court, which made him a marked man.

Who can defend the removal of his 2005? KOM title? I am unaware of any justification for that, because his first erroneous filing was Nov2006 early in the days of whereabouts - and they made a mistake on process in that!

That is not justice.

Read it race radio. Well worth the time.

Great post!