Boogerd wants to go home

Tour de France organizers have said that the remaining Rabobank riders are welcome to stay in the race, and the team management has said that it will leave that decision up to the individual riders. But Michael Boogerd said last night that he wanted to go home.

"To ride for four more days in the Tour for nobody? I won't do that," he said, according to Sporza. "I don't know what I should think of all this. I want to go home immediately.

"And what do you think it will be like in the criteriums?" Boogerd continued, according to HLN.be. "At Boxmeer you come to the start and the announce will say, 'Look, here we have Michael Boogerd, who rode for Rasmussen for weeks.' I find it terrible."

"I don't want to think about it. This is a disaster, man. I hadn't held it for possible."

Boogerd has already announced that he will retire at the end of this season.

The Rabobank team is staying in the same hotel as the teams Euskaltel, Caisse d'Epargne and CSC, and while those three showed signs of live Thursday morning with the mechanics running around and getting the bikes ready for the stage, the Rabobank area was suspiciously quiet.