Michael Rasmussen came back on Saturday for the first time since he was excluded from the 2007 Tour de France. The Danish rider was fired,  while wearing the yellow jersey, after the furore surrounding his missed doping controls in the build-up finally proved too much even for his Rabobank team. Now, he holds the post of journalist for Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet.

Interviewed by Cyclingnews, Rasmussen told about doping suspicions. “For sure he’s very focused on the weight and that certainly makes a difference, but I don’t know how he is training and I would rather not speculate on it,” Rasmussen said asked to draw comparisons between his and Froome’s ability to glean so much power from such lean physiques. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been competing at that level. I did it in another way and that was not quite according to the rules. I do not want to speculate on how he does it. I think he’s training shitloads to ride as fast as he does. I think all the yellow jerseys did.”

During the 2007 Tour de France, Rasmussen gently dismissed the repeated blunt denials about doping suspicions. “If you accept the condition that once you answer the question honestly, your cycling career is over, then it’s a stupid question to ask,” Rasmussen said. “I’ve never heard any rider so far say ‘Yes’ to the rolling camera while he’s racing in his active career, so it’s not really the answer that’s wrong but the question. It doesn’t change people’s opinion whether you ask the question or not. It’s a useless question.”

After his withdrawn from the race and fired by his team Rabobank for "violating internal rules », he said he had been made a scapegoat for cycling’s ills. But now, he explained that cycling is changing. “It’s a cleaner peloton now than it was ten years ago.”

To finish, he added he don’t regret to use doping products. “I do not regret that I took doping if that’s what you’re asking,” Rasmussen said. “I think that was a condition in order to be competitive and battling for what I was battling for in those times. I was pursuing victory in the Tour de France since I was 8 years old. If I had to stop that pursuit, I would have stopped it ten years before. I did what I felt I needed to do in order to be competitive, to achieve the goals.”