Dane details team’s involvement in doping at Rabobank and implicates Menchov in doping offences.

Michael Rasmussen has followed up his January admission to doping by giving a video interview to NOS.nl in which he details Dr. Geert Leinders’ participation in his doping regime.

Rasmussen, who is presently suing for illegal cessation from the Rabobank team after it fired him in 2007 over whereabouts violations, is hinging his 5.6 million euro case on proving that the team knew he was purposefully dodging the anti-doping authorities in order to dope as preparation for the Tour de France.

He stated that the team management and medical staff, including Dr. Leinders, Dr. Dion van Bommel and Dr. Jean-Paul van Mantgem all knew about the doping programme. Van Bommel, who is currently with Team Blanco, was "not directly involved, just in the sense that he was informed about it by van Mantgem and Dr. Leinders, he didn’t actually take part."

But Rasmussen insisted Leinders did take part in the doping programme, from knowledge of the Dane’s past history when signing with the team to sticking the needle in his arm to start a transfusion in 2004.

"I used [transfusions] for the first time in 2004, and it was done by Dr. Leinders. The courier dropped the blood bag off, he picked it up and took it to my room and infused it," Rasmussen said.

When Operacion Puerto broke in 2006, the team began to be more cautious about transfusions, Rasmussen said, and suddenly changed its mind about using the blood in the 2006 Tour de France.

"They suddenly changed that plan and would not allow the second blood bag to be infused on the second rest day in the Tour de France," he said. Regardless of the decision, he won the stage two days later in La Toussuire.

He went on to specify that in 2007, the team withdrew its decision and he went ahead banking blood in Vienna with the intention to use it during the 2007 race.

But on June 6, team manager Erik Breukink paid him a visit in Italy to inform him that they wouldn’t permit any transfusions during the Tour de France, a decision that came straight from the team management.

"I was never told 'don’t take EPO'."

Rasmussen persisted with his "preparation", recording his whereabouts for June by claiming he’d be in Mexico, but instead continued his training in Italy, using the time to heighten his haematocrit with EPO.

"[The team] knew that I was always having a time before the Tour without any racing so I could prepare myself with EPO and other medicines," he said.

In previous years – including the 2003 Vuelta a España and in 2005, Dr. Leinders had amassed drugs such as insulin in the refrigerator on the team bus, Rasmussen said. In 2007, the portfolio comprised DynEPO – a new blood booster that was essentially identical to the erythropoietin hormone produced in the human body since it was produced using human cell cultures rather than animal cultures.

"In 2007 DynEPO was kept in the bus, and I had some, I think someone else too. I never saw it happen, but I suspect some of those guys had DynEPO during the Tour," he said.

After years of lying about doping, Rasmussen said it’s a relief to finally be able to tell people the truth.

"I’m glad I don’t have to lie anymore. I really don’t like it. It’s nice to be able to talk to people without having to lie.

"That was the feeling I had before. I knew every time I got the question 'have you taken doping' I had to say no because I knew if I gave an honest answer my cycling career was over."

Giving testimony in the on-going trial against Rabobank, Michael Rasmussen reiterated his previous statements yesterday that the team management knew about his falsified whereabouts reports and he also stated that he went to Vienna to receive a blood transfusion together with teammates Michael Boogerd and Dennis Menchov.

Rasmussen’s statements on Dutch TV can be viewed here.