Tom Boonen Makes Himself Look like a Pillock

[Skip Madness]

You may have read Tom Boonen's recent comments about the possibility of excluding of LPR Brakes from Milano-Sanremo:

Tom Boonen would find the potential exclusion of Milano-Sanremo hopefuls Alessandro Petacchi and Danilo Di Luca (both LPR Brakes) justified. Boonen said that teams who don't follow the UCI regulations, such as the blood passport programme or the whereabouts rules, should not be allowed to compete in the big races.

Only ProTour teams and those teams with wildcards can participate in Milano-Sanremo. "If LPR Brakes follows the rules then there is no problem at all," Boonen told Belgian paper Sportwereld. "The racers have to follow the whereabouts rules. I do that out of total conviction, but everybody needs to do the same. I already had to do that from the first year [the whereabouts system started]. Initially we were only 20, then 100 and now everybody."

LPR Brakes was excluded from Paris-Tours last year for not having signed up for the blood passport programme. It also had some trouble receiving the UCI Professional Continental status for 2009.

LPR's manager Fabio Bordonali was none too happy about it, and responded:

... Bordonali clarified that the team has indeed paid for the passport testing this year and is fully compliant with the whereabouts system.

"The wild card label is not synonymous with the biological passport," Bordonali said to Cyclingnews. The UCI's wild card designation is based upon participation in the passport programme in part, but also carries other requirements unrelated to the anti-doping effort. Several teams missed the deadline for receiving the wild card designation which is required for ProTour races, but are still allowed to race the UCI's Historical calendar as long as they have paid into the passport system.

Without wild card status, LPR cannot start races such as the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Amstel Gold Race. But it is already on the list of invited teams to start in Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Sanremo and the Giro d'Italia. Tomorrow, it races in the Monte Paschi Eroica.

"I think that there is no intelligence and a lot of stupidity," Bordonali said of Boonen's comments. "It was not explained to Tom Boonen that LPR paid for the biological passport starting in [November] 2008."

Bordonali took over LPR at the end of 2007 with star rider Danilo Di Luca in his ranks. He found out early in 2008 that the team had to pay an additional sum of around 120,000 euro to join the International Cycling Union's new biological passport system. He did not pay because he did not have guarantees in which races his team could enter and he did not want to fuel the war between the Grand Tour organisers and the International Cycling Union (UCI).

The team hired Alessandro Petacchi mid-year following his suspension for excess asthma medication, but the organisers of Paris-Tours prohibited LPR Brakes from entering the race Petacchi won the previous year because it was not enrolled in the passport system. Since then, the team has started paying for the anti-doping testing programme, and it has the right to enter races that are important to the Italian team: the Giro d'Italia, Milano-Sanremo and Tour de France.

And now today, at a press conference, Pat McQuaid said that LPR have indeed paid the money for the biological passport programme this year, while - you guessed it - Quickstep have not and may be excluded from Paris-Nice because of it:

At a press conference in Paris today, UCI President Pat McQuaid said that Cofidis, Bbox Bouygues Telecom, Silence-Lotto, Quick Step and Caisse d'Epargne are the teams involved.

"If the teams do not pay by the close of business today, they will not be able to take part in the UCI's World Calendar races," McQuaid said. The teams' contribution to the biological passport programme is 120,000 Euro. Half is due by March 5, and the second half due by the end of June. Some teams have already paid the full amount, and other teams have paid only the required first-half. McQuaid did not indicate whether the five teams have paid nothing or have paid less than the required amount.

He further noted that all of the Professional Continental teams who have wild-card status and belong to the biological passport programme have all paid in full.

McQuaid said that as far as he knew, LPR Brakes had paid the full amount, but that Quick Step had not." It is not acceptable that small teams with a smaller budged have paid, but that some ProTour teams have not," McQuaid said.

Tom Boonen, you are a pillock.[/B]

 

[Chuffy]

You may have read Tom Boonen's recent comments about the possibility of excluding of LPR Brakes from Milano-Sanremo:


LPR's manager Fabio Bordonali was none too happy about it, and responded:

And now today, at a press conference, Pat McQuaid said that LPR have indeed paid the money for the biological passport programme this year, while - you guessed it - Quickstep have not and may be excluded from Paris-Nice because of it:

Tom Boonen, you are a pillock.

Hmmmm. So all Boonen actually said was that teams who don't sign up should be excluded. And it's hardly up to him, personally, to ensure that Quickstep fill in the appropriate forms. Never underestimate the power of Chinese whispers in journalism....

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Seems pretty clear to me that Boonen didn't check his own team's situation or that of the other team before making his comments. This hardly seems like the media's fault. The fact that the other team includes some of his biggest potential sprint rivals makes it seem like he was essentially gloating and casting aspersions on this rivals in a way that was actually entirely unjustified.

So, yes, pillock.

 

[Chuffy]

Seems pretty clear to me that Boonen didn't check his own team's situation or that of the other team before making his comments. This hardly seems like the media's fault. The fact that the other team includes some of his biggest potential sprint rivals makes it seem like he was essentially gloating and casting aspersions on this rivals in a way that was actually entirely unjustified.

So, yes, pillock.

So, what was the situation when he was asked? Come on Monkey, you're enough of a media tart to know how these things work....

 

[yello]

"Pillock" is a bit harsh. We don't really know the circumstances under which Boonen was asked. He may have been wiser to have not responded but that's a hindsight thing. At the time, he may have called it as he saw it and, obviously, to the best of his knowledge. He was just wrong and heaven forbid that simply being wrong makes you a pillock!

Bet he's feeling like a bit of a chump now though!

 

[Flying_Monkey]

"Pillock" is a bit harsh. We don't really know the circumstances under which Boonen was asked. He may have been wiser to have not responded but that's a hindsight thing. At the time, he may have called it as he saw it and, obviously, to the best of his knowledge. He was just wrong and heaven forbid that simply being wrong makes you a pillock!

Bet he's feeling like a bit of a chump now though!

Chump may be more charitable.

In terms of what you say if you are asked a question like this on the spot, you never accept what a journalist tells you on the spot as true. For example, if a journalist says. 'X is true. What do you think about that?' and you don't know if X is true, you say 'I don't know about that.' You don't try to hedge it or say anything like 'if... then' because the media will twist it. Boonen is experienced enough that he should know about how the media works by now!

 

[Keith Oates]

It seems to me that Boonen was giving an opinion that supported the UCI rules but was not aware that his team was one of the ones that had not paid. I don't really see any problem with that, he is after all a racer for the team not the general manager!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[yello]

Boonen is experienced enough that he should know about how the media works by now!

Ay, true enough. Maybe a case of lesson reinforced then!

he is after all a racer for the team not the general manager!

Agreed. Perhaps he'll remind himself to limit his comments to racing then... he should know the media likes to engineer stories! He went and fed then a nice juicy one didn't he?!

It seems the money's in now so, hopefully, it'll be his racing that's the story this week.

"Cofidis and Quick Step have paid their fees to the UCI," the UCI said in a statement. Bbox Bouygues Telecom and Caisse d'Epargne said they had also settled.

From www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/8390040

 

[Dave5N]

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2009/mar09/mar06news4

 

[Paulus]

It seems to me that Boonen was giving an opinion that supported the UCI rules but was not aware that his team was one of the ones that had not paid. I don't really see any problem with that, he is after all a racer for the team not the general manager!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I would suspect that this is nearer to the truth of Boonens statement. It could of been that the journo who asked the question may of already known that Quickstep had not paid up, and was setting Boonen up for a fall.