Danish cyclist Michael Rasmussen says he felt suicidal following his Tour de France disqualification last year. He also says there was this huge multi-continent mix-up. Rasmussen was DQed when the Tour felt he lied about his whereabouts, leading to a missed doping test.
The Gaurdian describes the location mix up.
"At the end of March, I faced serious personal problems, in the area of relationships to be exact," Rasmussen was quoted as saying in the Dutch daily De Telegraaf on Saturday.
"I wanted to train without disturbances preparing for the Tour and not be confronted with this. That is why it was better that the world thought that I was in Mexico," Rasmussen was quoted as saying in an interview with the paper, which printed pictures of him in his Lake Garda home in Italy.
Rasmussen was sacked by Rabobank in July, four days before the Tour's end, after the team said he had lied about where he had been training. At the time, Rasmussen said he had been in Mexico, while the Dutch team said he was in Italy.
Rasmussen said he entertained morbid thoughts:
Asked about the night he was expelled from the Tour and moved to a hotel, he told the paper: "Five hours after I stood on the stage, I was suddenly alone. My whole world had collapsed. I was lucky I could not find a rope in the room. Otherwise I would not have been here now."
However, the Philly Inquirer reports the cyclist had other morbid plans:
"On the other side of the road, trucks kept passing us. It would have been easy to grab the steering wheel," he told De Telegraaf in weekend editions. "Then this terrible nightmare would have been over."
Wow, he doesn't sound too happy at the time. Maybe because he tested positive for EPO?
In September, the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) said Rasmussen had tested "non-negative" for EPO during this year's Tour de France but the result of the analysis of Rasmussen's urine sample could not be declared positive for legal reasons.
The Philly Daily News said this (and people think we are cynical):
These guys lie so much, they can't even remember who they are and aren't lying to.
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