Quote:
Originally Posted by Bring_Back_Shantz
He was probably given more than the madatory punishment, because he had was on a team who didn't want to be associated with someone who would lie to them about his whereabouts, and cast an image of impropriety on himself and his team.
He received the official mandatory punishment from the sporting body, and his team/sponsor decided that they didn't want to support him anymore, so they pulled him.
He wasn't punished more than the other riders by any official body, he pissed off his sponsor and was fired, something that they were probalby were right to do for two reasons:
1) Who would want to sponsor and pay someone who intentionally lies to them?
2) There is major potential for embarassment if thier rider is found out to have been doing something wrong in the timeframe that he lied to you them about.
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Good post.
He did recieve a €10,000 penalty/fine by the Rabobank team for him not telling them about his whereabouts. And that was that. Until the rumor mill started turning that he was in Italy instead of Mexico.
A few things I can't help but wonder:
1. If you're the sponsor of a player/racer, should it not be your responsibility, as a team manager/organization, to know where your racers are, or at least know how and where to contact him? As Rasmussen was subjected to a random test, just as every other cyclist, why didn't Rabobank try to find him themselves instead of stick their head in the sand and act ignorant. Personally, I think they dumped him to save their own neck; as in, they knew more than they'd like to admit.
2. Personally, to
fire someone because they lied, I don't like it. He most likely did do some illegal training with Epo in Italy (which EVERYONE did, not in Italym but they all did their training, and alot were repremanded for not showing up at a random drug control test) and was justfully penalized for it. The action was joke, in my opinion, from an ethical, professional and anti-hypocritical perspective.
It sure won't surprise me if we will hear something on Contador in the upcoming weeks, I bet there's nothing Rasmussen did that he didn't do.