By DPA
Paris : Tour de France leader Michael Rasmussen has left the race after his Rabobank team pulled him out because he had lied about his whereabouts apparently to avoid out-of-competition doping tests, French sport daily L'Equipe reported on its website.
"He broke team rules. It is not certain if the team will continue in the race," a spokesman for Rabobank said.
Rabobank team director Theo de Rooy was more specific.
"On several occasions, he claimed he was training, and that was a lie. Team management was warned several times and had received new information on Wednesday," de Rooy said.
Rasmussen, who solidified his lead in Wednesday's 16th stage, was a controversial figure on the Tour after he was kicked off the Danish national cycling team for having missed two out-of-competition doping tests earlier in the year.
Tour organisers said that if they had been informed in time, they would not have allowed the 33-year-old Dane to race.
"Michael Rasmussen never should have started the Tour," Patrice Clerc, head of the Amaury Sport Organisation, which runs the Tour, said Tuesday.
"The champion must be unimpeachable, an example."
Rasmussen was jeered and whistled at by spectators before the start of the 16th stage and received the same treatment at the awards ceremony at the conclusion of the stage, which he won.
Rasmussen, a former cross-country cycling world champion, led second-place Alberto Contador of Spain by three minutes, 10 seconds in the overall standings after Wednesday's stage and seemed certain to win the championship.
Contador now leads the Tour, with Australian Cadel Evans in second place, 1:53 sec behind. Contador's Discovery Channel teammate Levi Leipheimer of the US stands third, 2:49 sec adrift.
The announcement of Rasmussen's departure is the third doping bombshell to shake the Tour in two days.
On Tuesday, the Astana team of pre-race favourite Alexandre Vinokourov of Kazakhstan pulled out of the race after the announcement that Vinokourov had tested positive for an illegal blood transfusion before Saturday's time trial, which he won.
Earlier Wednesday, just hours before the Rasmussen announcement, the French Cofidis team quit the Tour after one of its riders, Italian Christian Moreni, tested positive for synthetic testosterone after the 11th stage on July 19.
The Tour ends Sunday in Paris.