Leader Rasmussen Removed From Race

Tour organizers said Tuesday they would have stopped Rasmussen from taking part in the race had they known about the missed tests before the July 7 start.

"We cannot say that Rasmussen cheated, but his flippancy and his lies on his whereabouts had become unbearable," Tour director Christian Prudhomme said.

The leader of cycling's governing body applauded the decision.

"My immediate reaction is, why didn't they do this at the end of June, when they had the same information?" International Cycling Union president Pat McQuaid said. "The team decided to pull him out -- that's their prerogative. I can only applaud that. It's a zero-tolerance policy, and it's a lesson for the future."

With Rasmussen out, Spanish rider Alberto Contador of the Discovery Channel team moved into the lead. Australian Cadel Evans, who rides for Predictor-Lotto, moved up to second, with U.S. rider Levi Leipheimer, also with Discovery, now third.

"It's in no way a celebration on our end. It's the third piece of bad news," Discovery Channel spokesman P.J. Rabice said. "It reflects badly on our sport."

Bergsma said the Rabobank team, which has suspended Rasmussen, had not decided yet whether its other riders would take the start Thursday in Pau. Its next best rider was Michael Boogerd of the Netherlands, 16th and about 28 minutes behind Contador.

After the Tour's upbeat start in London, when millions of spectators lined streets to watch, bad news -- nearly all of it related to doping -- quickly dominated.

German rider Patrick Sinkewitz crashed into a spectator then was revealed to have failed a drug test in training before the Tour, and Vinokourov was sent home after testing positive for a banned blood transfusion. On Wednesday, as Rasmussen was riding toward his stage 16 win, the Cofidis squad confirmed its Italian rider Cristian Moreni failed a doping test, prompting the withdrawal of the entire squad.

Police detained Moreni after he finished the stage and searched the hotel where his Cofidis team was staying. Results from the raid weren't expected until Thursday. France has tough laws against trafficking in doping products.

Cofidis manager Eric Boyer said Moreni "accepted his wrongdoing" and waived his right for a follow-up test to confirm the results of the first, which was positive for the male hormone testosterone.

All this talk of doping prompted Jean-Francois Lamour, vice president of the World Anti-Doping Agency, to suggest the sport should be yanked from the Olympics. German public broadcasters have stopped airing the race, and one of Switzerland's biggest newspapers stopped writing about it. The daily Tages Anzeiger said on its Web site Wednesday it will limit its coverage to results and doping stories.

Tom Lund, chairman of the Danish Cycling Union, said Rabobank "did they right thing, because it is a situation that no serious team cannot live with."

"It is an unfortunate situation for Danish cycling, for international cycling."

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Associated Press Writers Jamey Keaten and Jean-Luc Courthial in Gourette, France, John Leicester in Paris and Jan Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.