Re:
SeriousSam said:
Sure, he could do whatever he wanted. And what he did reflects quite badly on him, which you'd see if you took off your rose tinted glasses for a mere moment.
As I see the article it is an attempt to offer some perspective and maybe even some form of reasoning to what Tinkov did. It's a well written piece and nuance is always good when assessing an often praised leadership.
What is unquestionable is that Riis has invested huge amounts of ressources in his project to create the worlds best cycling team. He has been very succesful on his journey and it is no secret that his full investment of himself at times has drained him as well as he has been suffering from depression.
The TDS incident seems somewhat strange and on surface does reflect badly on him.
One could argue though, that an article that seems to aim towards offer the "worst" version of his leadership really aren't coming up with much if you take into account the year-span and severity of the TDS instance...
Riis has always been a complicated person and despite his character that seems to be of a introvert almost "loner" he chose to become Team owner and manager. -roles that demand openness as well as being accessible to the public, sponsors and not in the least his staff and riders.. I have followed him for twenty years and he always seemed to be very invested in his riders and their well-being by being someone they could "go to" when needed..
Maybe this is why we hear some of these stories.. To be succesful and to care about his sorroundings (which i believe is in his nature) he felt a need to be something that did not come to him naturally and in effect you have some incidents where he simply "disappears" physically and mentally to safeguard himself from the enourmous pressure and all the challenges he had to overcome.
From a riders perspective it can be hard to understand why your leader is watching tv-series in the team car in a stressful situation, but at the time there were severe challenges maybe even the threat of dissolvement..
This of course is also his responsability and maybe that was the reason he simply had to think about something else allthough I admit the timing seems absurd...
What is for sure is that he is a person sorrounded by much respect in the peleton.
There are several accounts of riders chosing his team because of him as well as him being an enourmous authoruty always naturally "claiming" the room when he spoke at meetings etc...
Apart from some obvious exceptions riders have flourished at his team and declined when leaving.
And over almost ten years it is an impressive norm that speaks for itself...
Edit: If I should point out one thing that may really reflect badly on him it is the sale of the team to Tinkov.
But that is a very long discussion with much nuance as well..
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