The Rabobank team, it seems, has done some more digging and found that not only did its chicken-legged star miss four doping checks, he also was not where he claimed to be earlier this year. When he said he was in Mexico in June, the team has learned that he was actually in Italy. This revelation is, apparently, the proverbial third strike, and Michael Rasmussen is out:

Yellow jersey Michael Rasmussen (Rabobank) will not start Stage 17 of the Tour de France Thursday morning.

Team manager Theo DeRooy has withdrawn the maillot jaune from the Tour de France, allegedly because Rasmussen lied to the Rabobank team as to his true whereabouts when he missed his out of competition tests in June.

DeRooy will not withdraw the entire team, but will allow the riders to choose to start the stage tomorrow.

And a note to those hype-manufacturers at Versus who insist that last year’s Tour was “known as the Tour of Chaos” - I’ve got news for you. That was child’s play. This is the real chaos.