Yes, Alexander Vinokourov of Kazakstan from Team Astana blood doped and is now out of the tour. Borat would be upset! This means he injected someone elses blood into him to pump him up full of extra hemo before his time trial win.
Rasmussen is from Denmark.
Interestingly, mountain bikers are beginning to own the Tour now that Lance is gone.
Rasmussen was busted for EPO in 2003 or 2004 on the World Cup MTB circuit. He switched to road because MTBers never forgive dope use.
Cadel Evans of Australia, a former silver medallist in the MTB worlds, and also the junior road time trial champion a few years back is another successful roadie who was once a MTBer. Cadel is in the top 3 of the tour currently.
Floyd Landis of the U.S also started out as a half decent MTBer in the Norba circuit, though he never dominated it nor did he do very well at the World Cup level. Apparently, Testosterone aside, he was a better road rider than an MTBer.
I'm going for CSC in this tour and think Valverdes team can make up alot of time in the team time trial. We'll see what happens. Plus they use Cervelo's , aside from Colnago's there isnt a better road bike out there.