......McQuaid vowed to stay on as the head of the International Cycling Union. ''Cycling does not belong to the Tour de France, it belongs to the cycling family,'' he said. ''Are we to blame because there are guys getting caught (cheating). WE COULDN'T BREAK THE RULES IN RELATION TO MICHAEL RASMUSSEN TO STOP HIM COMING INTO THE RACE. ''It's no use making rules as you go along as they've done here this week. The sport needs a structure under a government and not everybody doing their own thing.''
Rasmussen was fired by his team, however, while he was leading the Tour last week, when it was reported that Rasmussen was not training in Mexico in June as he had said. Instead, he was in Italy, the team said, where anti-doping officials from cycling's governing body had been looking for him to perform an out-of-competition drug test. RASMUSSEN MISSED TWO TESTS IN THE 45 DAYS BEFORE THE TOUR, WHICH UNDER CYCLING'S RULES WOULD HAVE EXCLUDED HIM FROM STARTING THE TOUR. The International Cycling Union had not told Tour de France officials about the missed tests, however, and Rasmussen was allowed to start. But when Rabobank team officials learned that he had deceived them regarding his whereabouts, they kicked him off the team and out of the Tour.
