Too much snow for the mailman to come - so I'm off on a rant....

Earlier in the week, many read the Floyd Landis interview with Paul Kimmage.  Among many, many other things said during the course of the interview, Landis had some pretty pointed accusations about the UCI and its directors, past and present.  In a nut shell, there were certain suggestions that the UCI has been playing favorites within the pro-peloton for money. Two days ago, current UCI president Pat McQuaid had this to say about the interview:

"I read some it.  It got boring half-way through.  I'll read the rest on a plane some time.  I got about a third of the way in.  It was just boring, the detail he was going into about Landis his background and his philosophy about life."

"I can see about this far in front of my face....past that, nothing interests me."

I've never been the director of anything in my life, but I have a suggestion for Mr. McQuaid.  Pat, even if you think Landis is lying through his teeth about everything now, and you would no more wipe your ass with the transcript of the conversation than actually read it - fair enough.  I still see two more reasonable ways to respond to the question posed to you regarding your thoughts on it.

a) "I did read it.....with great interest as a matter of fact.  Some of the suggestions are pretty serious there and are worth looking into. I have no evidence of corruption in the UCI, but cleaning up the sport means making sure it's clean from both the bottom and the top."

b) "No, I've not read it completely yet, but I'm planning on it when I get a little time.  Regardless of Mr. Landis' history, we should take his present comments seriously.  If cleaning up the sport means we occasionally end up chasing some wild geese - so be it.  It's worth the effort."

Either way, you diffuse the seriousness of the allegations.  And you don't end up sounding like a defensive ass-hat.  Jesus, is it so difficult to not sound like a complete effing moron?  Well if you are Pat McQuaid, apparently it is rather difficult.  And the stupidity doesn't stop there....He and the UCI recently suffered a tongue-lashing by respected cycling writer Joe Lindsey in the Boulder Report regarding their refusal to listen to the very pros they are supposed to be protecting, pissing off promoters (and the president of Tour of California, Andrew Messick) and finally ticking off bike manufacturers.  The general question posed by Lindsey is, "Is the UCI losing the sport?"  Well, even if Pat has lost his common sense and the sport of cycling, he hasn't lost his ability to mack on the ladies.

(That's Mari Holden on the left, 2000 world time trial champion, and also first American woman to win three consecutive U.S. time trial championsihps (1998,1999,2000)  Watch the hands, Pat).

And speaking of the UCI and the Tour of California, does anyone else find it a little odd that in 2008, Amgen Tour of California organizer AEG stood steadfastly by the UCI rule that prohibited cyclists under doping investigations from competing (thus preventing then Rock Racing cyclists Tyler Hamilton, Oscar Sevilla and Santiago Botero from racing) but now in 2011, AEG and UCI have agreed to drop that rule for the Tour of California, when a certain Mr. Armstrong (also under investigation) may be wishing to compete? 

I'm guessing the draw in attendance (and thus revenue) in response to the appearnces of Hamilton, Sevilla and Botero far surpasses that of Armstrong - so there is no monetary incentive behind this decision - right?  Such suggestions would be downright....well "boring" for lack of a better word.

And back to Floyd. I guess, according to Pat, everything he had to say was completely bogus.  Oh wait - except now some of it is being substantiated in hard-copy form.....like Landis' reported dispute with the UCI and the money the UCI owed him when his own team (Mercury) couldn't pay him his salary in 2001. (The UCI has regulations that provide financial support to professional cyclists in the event that their team cannot.)  Apparently, the UCI didn't only withold paying Floyd - but also his teammate Chris Horner who had to "have a garage sale to pay his monthly bills and feed his children....."  You can read all those documents, released today, on the Cyclocosm website.  Past UCI president Hein Verbruggen believed that Landis and Horner's attorney, Michael Rutherford, was too aggressive in his attempt to make the UCI follow their own rules in trying to gain payment for his clients which was not justified by the small amount of the claim:

"Your aggressiveness is not at all justified by a claim of $6,666.66....I have given order to our legal department to take the tone of your approach into account when it comes to following up on your request."

(click to enlargen, or read here).

But the UCI is above reproach - right Pat?  I wonder if the UCI ever treated LA like this?  That old "Floyd has zero credibility" thing that his detractors keep spouting is certainly losing some steam.