Just when you thought the Idiot Train had discharged all passengers – TOOT! TOOT! – guess who steps onto the platform? Why, it’s Jesper Worre, organizer of largely irrelevant Tour of Denmark, who has declared that Ivan Basso is not welcome at his race. Worre justified his decision with this cryptic remark:
“The fact alone that DS Bruyneel says they have four lawyers looking at things shows that he is in doubt. And if you are in doubt, let it be”.
Next time, he might want to consider hiring Lindsay Lohan to tidy that press statement up for him.
Still, Worre’s inability defend his opinions critically will no doubt receive praise from Hans-Michael Holczer, the Gerolsteiner manager now pressing for race organizers to exclude teams based on doping suspicion. Holczer, a former history teacher who could perhaps use a course on civics, seems to think the race organizers and ICPT, neither of whom have a codified, public set of rules, should decide who’s doping and who can and can’t compete in bike races. I mean, seriously, what do we need WADA and the UCI for, anyway?
Of course, people on this side of the Atlantic, perhaps less comfortable with the concept of arbitrary authority, don’t seem to care much for any of these Euronyms. The LA Times became just the latest major media organization to publicly denounce WADA protocol for it’s improprieties. You can, by the way, add Rory Sutherland to the laundry list of mistreated athletes in that article. Can you really blame him for not appealing when it’s far more economically viable to sit out the suspension? Perhaps Dick Pound should start a fund with the income from one of his other six-figure jobs to help athletes defend themselves.