First up was Alexander Vinokourov. I had suspicions all along because he announced publicly before the tour that he had links to a particular doctor, Michele Ferrari, who has been brought up on trial before for involvement in doping activities. He was never convicted but it got me thinking. It was clear if he went on to win the Tour de France a lot of people would take the credibility away from him because of this. After he was booted out he said I made him a scapegoat. It's a sad and pathetic parting shot because the test made him a scapegoat. He won a stage, therefore had to be tested and came back positive.

But the expulsion that really got people talking was Michael Rasmussen. He never tested positive and it's a completely different situation to others. Before the race he had given incorrect information about his whereabouts to the UCI on two different occasions. You can't do it more than three times within an 18-month period. In April last year and in June of this year he was late by a couple of days in giving this information and because of this he got a warning and was told if it happened again he'd be sanctioned.

Under cycling rules this is all confidential and we cannot go public until he is sanctioned for that third offence.

But during the race the Danish Cycling Federation released a communique, under pressure from the Danish media, stating he had not been selected for the World Championships or the Olympic Games because of his behaviour. They went on to explain why. Turns out Rasmussen had missed out-ofcompetition testing, . . . he said once, they said more than this . . . and it was their prerogative to do this. Then it all kicks off. Christian Preudhomme, who's the director of the race, calls me and he's going on like a lunatic. He wanted to know why I hadn't told him this before the race, he said they would have done their best to make sure he never reached the start. I told him I couldn't as it was confidential. He keeps going and says I was part of the communique released by the Danes, that I wanted it released in the middle of the tour and I wanted to kill of the tour. He was ranting and shouting so I told him to call me when he calmed down and hung up. He was panicking and it's typical of those in charge of the tour because they want to blame everyone else.

It's typical as well because they have their own agenda.

They are a commercial company that own the rights to the Tour de France and they want to make the most of it.

We want to promote cycling worldwide through the ProTour whereas they don't care.

They think theirs should be the only race. They are selfserving and neglecting cycling and they aren't to be trusted.

In fact, it gets worse. For three weeks they use the media to promote their own agenda.

Since then there have been more twists. It turns out an ex-cyclist who is now a TV reporter for a station in Italy said he saw Rasmussen training in the Dolomites during a period in June when Rasmussen had said he was in Mexico. Therefore he lied to his team and to the UCI and under those circumstances confidence was gone and the team said good luck.

But there are still an awful lot of riders there who have competed fairly and while some have said this year's tour is null and void I don't believe that. There is going to be a good finish today between a lot of clean and honest riders and they should still be respected. Just as the tour should and that's the view of the UCI, despite what those over it would have you believe.

Pat McQuaid is president of the International Cycling Union

In conversation with Ewan MacKenna