Kimmage unleashes hell, counter-sues Verbruggen & McQuaid

[HL2037]

This is why my post count is low. And is likely to stay that way.

Pay no attention to that. It was a good and relevant link and better to post it one time too many than not at all.

 

[thirteen]

please excuse me that i am linking an article that was not written by Kimmage. he's just a wee bit busy right now.

what i am linking is the Neil Browne interview that I mentioned was coming with Jaimie Fuller:
Skins’ chairman Fuller on UCI lawsuit: “We want to see significant change”

it is relevant to the Kimmage case because they share the same lawyer. but, even on it's own, what Fuller has to say in the article linked above is something that all of us that support Kimmage can get our heads around... i wish there were more sponsors willing to put there necks out.

About his lawsuit:

And while Fuller takes square aim at McQuaid and Verbruggen, he insists this isn’t a vendetta against these two men.

“This is much bigger than that,” he said. “It’s about the culture within the UCI and the culture of how the sporting body works with the degree of arrogance and a power base where they are untouchable and unaccountable. My objective is about restructuring and overhauling a system that looks at the role of the UCI, particularly in regards to doping and policing, and what that relationship or balance should be between the UCI and the anti-doping agencies.”

“In my opinion we have a body that thinks it’s untouchable,” said Fuller. “I don’t think that’s right. Any other organization or any company with shareholders, the CEO would have been falling on his sword ages ago.”

and, because it hasn't been linked for a few pages, you can donate here to the Kimmage Defense Fund. i know it might not be as sexy now since the two clowns suspended the case, but it's more important than ever.

 

[thirteen]

The Outspoken Cyclist talks with Paul Kimmage: http://outspokencyclist.com/2012/11/show-117-november-17-2012/

 

[I Watch Cycling In July]

Just rereading the Kimmage/Landis interview that started the whole 'SLAPP' against PK. Couple of things struck me, the first has nothing to do with doping, but says a lot the way the UCI treats riders in general.

Landis: "After thirty days of not being paid, an athlete can request in writing to be paid from the guarantee. So I filed a claim to the UCI and they sent a note back saying ‘Look, he’s (the team manager, John Wordin) getting his finances together, please don’t file the claim right now. We’ll pay you when two months go by so just wait.’ So I wait for two months and then I was out of money, and I needed money, so I file the claim and they said ‘We just want you to wait one more month to see if this will work out’ and by this time it was July or August and I was broke. I had my lawyer send them an email saying ‘I need to be paid and if you don’t, then I’m going to have to pursue some legal way of doing it’ and we got a letter directly from Hein Verbruggen (the UCI president) stating that ‘This is not the United States, this is Switzerland’ and that ‘threatening to sue us is going to get the wrong reaction and I’m going to advise all of my people to deal with you accordingly.’ It was basically ‘**** off, you’re not getting the money.’ It took two years to get the money, and every time we would try to contact them they would just tell us to **** off basically and ‘sue us’ and ‘we don’t care’ and it was just one thing after another."

The second thing that really stood out was this comment in a follow up email from Kimmage:

Kimmage: "Floyd, we need to talk again. This sport is not healthy for you (or me for that matter). The only way you will ever find peace is if you walk away and never look back. I know that’s easier said than done but I honestly believe that’s the bottom line."

A timely reminder of the toll fighting the UCI takes on Kimmage.

 

[D-Queued]

...




and, because it hasn't been linked for a few pages, you can donate here to the Kimmage Defense Fund

... it's more important than ever.

Bump.

Hasn't been mentioned in over two weeks. The total is now over $92,000.

Dave.

 

[thehog]

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1210467

"The responsibility lies with UCI and not Lance," Kimmage says, sipping coffee in the restaurant of the Affinia Manhattan as commuters from Penn Station rush by the hotel on 7th Ave. “As great at it was to see Lance busted, the final responsibility lies with UCI. The real problem is McQuaid and Verbruggen.”

Kimmage, 50, is in New York this week to meet with other journalists on the Armstrong beat and to attend a fund-raiser Thursday night for the Century Road Club Association juniors, a cycling team for riders under age 19. The event, sponsored by the popular cycling website, NYVelocity.com, will also serve as a celebration of the people who were targeted by Armstrong — cyclist Frankie Andreu and his wife, Betsy, Tour de France champion Greg LeMond and his wife, Kathy, Armstrong’s former masseuse Emma O’'Reilly — because they spoke about Armstrong’s drug abuse, illicit blood transfusions and corporate cash.

"Betsy for me is the absolute hero, because she would absolutely not back down," says Kimmage, who is being trailed during his trip to New York by a crew making a documentary about him called “Rough Ride.” "I don’t feel any sympathy for Lance because he is such a nasty ******* who ruined so many lives."

 

[ValleyFlowers]

Paul Kimmage is in New York City tonite at the NYVeloCity Roller Party.

Some pictures and link for a live stream
https://twitter.com/nyvelocity

 

[thehog]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/19/lance-armstrong-cycling

Kimmage at his finest. Excellent and moving article.

39 seconds is about right as well.

The saddest story I've ever heard about sport was told to me in November 2010 by a man who cheated to win the Tour de France. We were sitting not in the plush surrounds of a five-star hotel in Texas, but in a sparsely furnished cabin in the San Jacinto mountains. Floyd Landis's old racing bike was standing just inside the doorway; his underwear was drying on a clotheshorse; the cupboards were bare, the carpet was worn; it had been a while since President Bush had called.

Darkness was falling on the mountain. Five hours had passed since he had begun telling his story and had covered most of the bases: his boyhood as a Mennonite, his doping apprenticeship with Lance Armstrong, his Tour de France win in July 2006 and the 12 months he spent lying after he tested positive. We have now reached the moment he knew the lying would have to stop.

It's 20 September 2007. He has just set off on a training ride from his home in San Diego when he receives a call from his lawyer, Maurice Suh. After a costly and protracted legal battle with the United States Anti-Doping Agency, the ruling on his positive test is about to be announced. "We should know in the next hour," the lawyer says.

Landis returns home immediately and waits in the garage. His wife, Amber, is sitting inside but he needs to be alone. The case has placed a desperate strain on their marriage. Every penny of their savings is riding on this call. Win, and the good times roll again. Lose, and they face ruin. Twenty minutes pass before the lawyer delivers the verdict. "We lost," he says.

Amber cries when she hears the news but Floyd burns with anger. He races upstairs to the living room and takes the most coveted prize in cycling – a beautiful porcelain bowl presented to the winner of Tour de France – from a cabinet. Amber knows what he's thinking and follows him up the stairs but he has already raised it over his head when she comes through the door.

"No Floyd!" she pleads. "It's all we have."

He smashes it to the floor.

"I had walked by that thing a hundred times [that year], and every single time I wanted to smash it," Landis explained. "It had made me into something that I wasn't. It represented a turning point in my life where I had to lie."

Lance Armstrong reached that turning point in 1999 but he's not living in a shed in the San Jacinto mountains, and he hasn't broken any porcelain yet. For the first 39 seconds of his interview with Oprah Winfrey, he was utterly convincing …

 

[Big Doopie]

Best part are the last few sentences. Holy crap.

 

[forumlurker]

didn't know floyd landis smashed his tdf trophy. that is awesome. up with flandis!

 

[JRanton]

Best part are the last few sentences. Holy crap.

Indeed...

In the autumn of 1993, Greg LeMond and his wife, Kathy, were sitting at home in the suburbs of Minneapolis, when they received a visit from Linda Mooneyham, the three-times Tour de France winner has recalled. Her 21-year-old son, Lance Armstrong, had just become the world champion and she had travelled from her home in Texas for advice.

"What does he do now?" she asked. "What does he do with his money?"

"Well, let him find an agent – a good one with an attorney," LeMond replied. "And one word of advice – just be his mom."

They sat on the porch for a while and then moved inside to the kitchen. Linda had something else on her mind: "How do I make him less of an *******. He doesn't care about anyone."

"Well," LeMond replied. "I can't help you there."

...

 

[frenchfry]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/jan/19/lance-armstrong-cycling

Kimmage at his finest. Excellent and moving article.

39 seconds is about right as well.

Now THAT was mesmerizing

 

[the asian]

Superb Article.

I feel a bit sorry for his mom.

 

[Fatclimber]

"I had walked by that thing a hundred times [that year], and every single time I wanted to smash it," Landis explained. "It had made me into something that I wasn't. It represented a turning point in my life where I had to lie."

Floyd was on USPS between '02 and '04, admitted doper. Yet the TDF trophy he got in '06 was a turning point in his life where he had to lie? Maybe he is referring to the whole timeframe?

 

[Benotti69]

"I had walked by that thing a hundred times [that year], and every single time I wanted to smash it," Landis explained. "It had made me into something that I wasn't. It represented a turning point in my life where I had to lie."

Floyd was on USPS between '02 and '04, admitted doper. Yet the TDF trophy he got in '06 was a turning point in his life where he had to lie? Maybe he is referring to the whole timeframe?

Maybe Floyd felt he didn't 'win' anything during '02 and '04 and it wasn't till '06 that he felt that the winning due to doping was too big of a lie? Or maybe the lie about the doping is the thing that got to him, him not being a sociopath and having a conscience.

 

[hrotha]

That trophy was what made him go to press conferences specifically to deny doping, write a book denying everything, start a foundation, go to court, hack computers, blackmail LeMond. I can see how it would be different from seeing any other trophies he got during the 2002-2006 period. No one with any morals would be able to keep that up indefinitely.

 

[martinvickers]

Maybe Floyd felt he didn't 'win' anything during '02 and '04 and it wasn't till '06 that he felt that the winning due to doping was too big of a lie? Or maybe the lie about the doping is the thing that got to him, him not being a sociopath and having a conscience.

Perhaps the bowl, and the tour win, simply represented the climax of the whole career - he lost the tour within days, remember, so it must have felt like a mocking - all the work, all the drugs, all the lies, and when he finally gets the 'big ring', after being the lapdog all those years, it immediately destroys him.

Or maybe that's just shakespeare.

But yes, one can't help think better of Floyd for that - a very human, sane and oddly moral response to the climax - "the bowl is f***ing meaningless, it's brought us nothing but grief, f*** it, no more" - the moment Floyd began to rejoin the human race...

 

[roundabout]

The real question is what would have happened had he won on some sort of a technicality.

He knew what had to be done to win the Tour. And it was his choice to aggressively keep up the lie. And he only smashed the trophy when he lost.

 

[Benotti69]

The real question is what would have happened had he won on some sort of a technicality.

He knew what had to be done to win the Tour. And it was his choice to aggressively keep up the lie. And he only smashed the trophy when he lost.

It was his choice to smash it aswell. He IMO did the right thing.

 

[Don't be late Pedro]

It was his choice to smash it aswell. He IMO did the right thing.

I get the impression it was only the problems that came after being caught that he was sorry about.

He would do everything the same except when caught admit to doping.

 

[thehog]

Now THAT was mesmerizing

I was a good article. Hopefully the Guardian will hire Kimmage freelance. Unless Wiggins puts a stop to it.

Writing is so much better when it's honest and emotive.

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

I was a good article. Hopefully the Guardian will hire Kimmage freelance. Unless Wiggins puts a stop to it.

Writing is so much better when it's honest and emotive.

It'll be back to one hundred and one 'Brits don't dope, huzzah for Sir Brad, Sir Dave and cute little Frodo Cavendish'.

 

[Froome19]

Good article. Unfortunately some of his quotes from the interview were taken a bit out of context.

 

[Fatclimber]

...

Or maybe that's just shakespeare.

But yes, one can't help think better of Floyd for that - a very human, sane and oddly moral response to the climax - "the bowl is f***ing meaningless, it's brought us nothing but grief, f*** it, no more" - the moment Floyd began to rejoin the human race...

I wonder what he could have gotten for it from a pawn shop.

 

[oldcrank]

A real journalist would verify with Lance's mommy if she called
him an a-sshole before printing it in the manner PK did. Not that
Lance is not an a-sshole by any stretch of the imagination, and
not that PK was not told that story by the Lemond's, but proper
journalists seek a second source to verify. Kudos to PK for much
of the work he has done, but in many ways he is about as good
a journalist as he was a cyclist. And yes, I do mean he took
"short-cuts" as a cyclist and he continues to take short-cuts as
a journalist. While his heart may be in the right place I don't think
we should worship him like many of you used to worship Lance.