After publishing yesterday’s piece about how the connections between Hein Verbruggen and the majority of those involved with the Tour of Beijing seem rather coincidental and dubious, I had a great twitter exchange with Slipstream Sports CEO Jonathan Vaughters, head of the company that owns the WorldTour license for Team Garmin-Cervelo.
My intent in writing was to illustrate to the general/casual cycling fan that there are issues with the individuals who have direct responsibility for the Tour of Beijing, as opposed to exposing some nefarious plot. I leave that to others who write for cyclismas.com. Vaughters’ initial response to the piece was correct – I didn’t draw any conclusions.
However, after Vaughters’ tweet, I felt it was important to summarize and state my objectives more clearly to him and for anyone else who was interested. Jonathan has done his best to attempt to unite the WorldTour teams and also the riders under his purview as head of the AIGCP.
Vaughters showed interest in my opinion on the subject.
So I obliged him with some observations.
My involvement with government entities in North America has afforded me insight into how these types of agencies work. I still find myself at a loss over the fact that the UCI – instead of handling themselves like an entity, say the United States Postal Service or the Environmental Protection Agency – choose to view themselves as being exempt from the normal duties of an oversight body, and thus feel they are above explaining their actions to the constituents whose interests they are supposed to be protecting.
I once had to submit a 30-page tender for a project with a state agency for a $300,000 piece of a $30 million project, and still had to go through four interviews and two proposal revisions before even receiving a yes. Why should the UCI be any different? Shouldn’t they wish to bring in fresh blood and fresh ideas that can ultimately benefit the sport? Instead, no one, save Jonathan Vaughters, asks any sort of questions as to why decisions are made. Ironically, it’s their money that is being used. Sure they have 15 people to oversee the sport, but that would be like the President of the United States and his cabinet making decisions without the input of Congress or the House of Representatives.
Vaughters agreed. The trouble is, he’s just one man. Where are the rest of the team owners on this?
Here I make a summary of the point that I discussed above, and my reasoning as to why we should have transparency. It’d be great if people like Chad Andrews of Total Cyclist had an opportunity to bid on things like the Media and Communications portion for the Tour of Beijing.
The question is, will Alain Rumpf – the head of Global Cycling Promotion, who has the ear of both Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid – pass this along to those two gentlemen? And would they be willing to have a dialogue about this? If they choose to ignore the opportunity and remained close-mouthed in their attitude, it demonstrate,s in some respect, what they are truly about. After all, the UCI did acknowledge that they have a weakness when it comes to social media, one which will continue to hurt them in the years to come if they elect to remain disengaged.
I’m hoping that Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid are both actually interested in what’s best for the sport, rather than in lining their pockets. History and time will demonstrate their legacy. Their actions exposed will show how future generations will judge their management of the sport of cycling. It’s never too late to change.
2 Comments
Imagine how much more effective JV could be if his peers found their spines and a little give a damn and actually came out to publicly support him?
Very True ‘Zilla. But there’s a ton of history to deal with, as has been discussed by the writers here on various forums, as well as the general press. There’s a history of uncooperative behaviour in the pro ranks of cycling that has to be overcome.