Michael Rasmussen (born June 1, 1974 in Tølløse) is
a Danish professional road bicycle racer who rode
for the Dutch team Rabobank. Specializing in
climbing, Rasmussen has shown a propensity for
attempting spectacular wins in mountain stages in
which he breaks away from the peloton early and
rides alone for most of the stage.
Michael Rasmussen is known for his care for detail
when considering weight. He is known for peeling off
unnecessary stickers from his bike, not wearing the
Livestrong wristband which has become common among
many Tour de France riders, due to the additional
grams. He only carries one water bottle holder and
his Colnago Extreme-C bike weighed 6.81 kg, only 10
g more than the minimum limit.
His nickname in Danish is Kyllingen (English: The
Chicken), originating from his period as a mountain
biker when teammates were watching the Danish
children's TV show, Bamses Billedbog, about a bear
and a chicken. A large team mechanic was nicknamed
Bear, and so Rasmussen was dubbed The Chicken.
In the 2007 Tour de France, Rasmussen, while in the
yellow jersey, had his contract terminated by the
Rabobank team and was removed from the Tour. The
team cited internal code violations. Since then,
Rasmussen has been without a team. Apart from some
criteriums, he has not entered any race, but still
is training as of February 2008.
Rasmussen began his career as a mountain biker, and
he won the Mountain Bike World Championships in 1999
before becoming a stagiaire with the professional
cycling team CSC-Tiscali in 2001. There he secured a
one-year contract for 2002, and following a string
of good results in August and September, including
his first professional win, he switched from
CSC-Tiscali to Rabobank in 2003. After being sacked
by Rabobank in the 2007 Tour de France Rasmussen got
a contract offer fromAcqua & Sapone-Caffè Mokambo.
The team manager then decided the move would be too
expensive and so therefore is still looking for a
team.
Rasmussen was the center of controversy while
wearing the yellow jersey in the 2007 Tour de
France, when it was announced that he had been
suspended from the Danish national cycling team at
UCI World Championships and Olympic Games following
missed doping controls. Rasmussen failed to report
his whereabouts for a three-week training session in
Mexico and was unavailable for testing during that
period; for that he received a recorded warning from
the UCI. Counting these missed tests together, the
Danish cycling union decided to ban Rasmussen.
Rasmussen said: "I do admit that I've committed an
administrative error. I was informed of this at the
Danish championship two and a half weeks ago, so
it's no news... It might be a surprise that it comes
out right now." The timing of the announcement led
to speculation by Patrice Clerc, chief of the Amaury
Sport Organisation, which organises the Tour de
France, that the UCI had leaked the news in the
middle of the Tour to damage it, as part of a
dispute between the two organisations over the
running of the UCI ProTour. This was rejected by the
UCI president Pat McQuaid, who said the timing was
the choice of the Danish cycling union.
According to a multiply-sourced VeloNews article
published on July 20, 2007, mountain bike racer
Whitney Richards accused Rasmussen of trying to get
him to transport a box, which Rasmussen had told
Richards contained his favourite cycling shoes, to
his training base in Italy in early 2002. The box
turned out to contain packets of Hemopure, a
bovine-hemoglobin-based blood substitute which is
not currently approved for human use outside South
Africa and did not become commercially available
there until January 2006, and which might
potentially have been used in a doping program. At
the time there was no screening test for Hemopure;
it is, however, banned by the WADA. Richards said he
destroyed the Hemopure, at which Rasmussen is said
to have grown angry and said to Richards "Have you
any idea how much that shit cost?"
A second journalist confirmed that Richards had
related the same story to him over two years ago,
off the record, and claims that the incident is the
one described in the epilogue of journalist David
Walsh's recent book From Lance to Landis. Rasmussen
had declined to comment on the story, saying only,
"I cannot confirm any of that."
On July 23, 2007 he was pushed about his reluctance
to deny the allegations in an interview on British
TV channel ITV4 (also broadcast in a podcast). He
denied any such incident and said he hadn't spoken
to Richards for five years and was unsure what he
had done to cause such allegations.
On July 25, 2007, the day Rasmussen won stage 16 and
virtually ensured his overall win of the 2007 Tour
de France, he was fired from Rabobank and removed
from the race. An Italian cycling commentator and
former professional road bicycle racer, Davide
Cassani, telling a story about Rasmussen's intense
preparations for the Tour, stated he had seen
Rasmussen in the Italian Dolomites on 13 June 2007,
cycling in the rain. According to the schedule
Rasmussen submitted to the UCI, he should have been
in Mexico at that time. When confronted with this
accusation, according to initial press reports,
Rasmussen admitted the facts to his team leader,
which resulted in Rasmussen's removal from the team
and the Tour. Rasmussen himself later first denied
that he had admitted any such thing, stating that
Rabobank manager Theo de Rooij "was a desperate man
on the verge of a nervous breakdown.", but later
admitted that he admitted the facts. Two days later
on Friday 27th Theo de Rooij announced his
resignation from his position as team manager.
Rasmussen's in-laws later confirmed to the Danish
newspaper BT that he had visited them in Mexico, but
that they didn't know where exactly he had been on
June 13 and 14, 2007. Rabobank backed the decision
to withdraw Rasmussen but reconfirmed its commitment
as a sponsor in cycling, at least at the local
level.
On December 17, 2007, the Dutch law firm
BrantjesVeerman confirmed Rasmussen had hired it to
fight his dismissal from Rabobank.
