Michael Ramussen, who was booted out of the Tour de France while  wearing the yellow jersey, has come clean about his whereabouts in June when he missed several doping tests, admitting that  he was in Italy even though he had claimed to  be in  Mexico — his excuse for missing the tests.

But he said his team, Rabobank, knew exactly where he was, and that the team yanked him from the Tour without good cause.

“First of all, I would like to clearly state that I was not in Mexico in June; I have therefore misinformed both the UCI and the public …  I would like to apologize to the public and the UCI for giving out false information,” Velonews.com quoted Rasmussen as saying Thursday at a news conference.  ”It is  important for me to stress that at no point did I lie to the team Rabobank.

“It is  … completely absurd that Rabobank took me out of the Tour de France claiming that I had mislead them. You cannot mislead people who have known the truth all along.”

Rasmussen told reporters he was in Italy  from June 4 to June 19 and that he joined the Rabobank team for a training session in the Pyrenees on June 25. He also said he traveled with a Rabobank staffer to the Pyrenees, on a ticket purchased by the team. Rasmussen also denied using EPO or Dynepo, and said his Tour de France doping tests came up clean.

As for why he lied about being in Mexico, he called it a family matter.

“I did this for personal and marital reasons alone, and in consideration of my family, I will not elaborate further on this matter,” Rasmussen said. “In retrospect, there are a lot of things I would done differently.”

Well, duh. Rasmussen’s fibs came back to bite him in the behind after he had taken the leader’s yellow jersey in the TdF. A storm of controversy swirled around him, particularly after reports surfaced that he had been seen training in Italy during the time he had claimed to be in Mexico. Rabobank, the sponsor not the team, decided to boot him a week before he would have worn the yellow in Paris. As a result, Alberto Contador inherited the yellow jersey.

As for why Rasmussen spoke out Thursday, Rabobank conducted an investigation into the matter and plans to report its findings on Monday. Rasmussen wanted to beat them to the punch.

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