Official Pat McQuaid Foot In Mouth thread

[L'arriviste]

Mods feel free to kill etc but ... almost every time Pat opens his glory box someone starts a new thread to give vent to their apoplexy.

So why not let's pour all that scorn in here and give him his very own receptacle of reprehensibility!

A good way to get those juvenile juices out of the system would be to start with your very own nickname for him. Some of my favourites coined by folks here are Fat Pat McQuack, McQaeda and Fatty Fat Fat Fat.

---------------

Today's massive huff concerns this McQuaker Corker:

&#8220]http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/mcquaid-says-uci-yet-to-decide-on-contador-appeal

What's that, Pat? You say it's good for a democratic government to be ignorant of the will of the people?

Well at least the French get to vote their government out if they're not happy. Cycling apparently has to stage the equivalent of a coup d'état.

 

[Anonymous]

It is a target rich environment, but here's my personal favorite;

McQuaid told Reuters: "At this point in time I haven't heard of any positive tests at this year's Tour de France or that we're checking samples to confirm positives.

"It's looking like the Tour de France will not have any positive tests for a number of years. I think that's a big step forward for cycling."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2009/08/23/us-cycling-tour-doping-sb-idUSTRE57M1KL20090823

 

[L'arriviste]

Indeed you will be well aware that German television has stopped broadcasting cycling. Doping was an element certainly but so were other issues. If the product was so interesting that people clamoured for it ARD and ZDF would not have killed the coverage.

What 'other issues' were these? Granted my grip on German's not brilliant, but I have never seen any evidence to suggest that ARD and ZDF killed cycling coverage for any reason other than doping.

"We have a contract to televise a sporting event, not a pharmaceutical performance."

So McQuaid claims that the broadcasters would still have run with it if the popular interest was there. Possibly, but wasn't it the doping that killed the popular interest? And even if that's just an assumption, is it so surprising that a public broadcaster makes a decision based on principle because commercial concerns are less binding?

 

[theswordsman]

There have been a lot, like the ones about the dates in December when they received the RFEC request for input, which was contradicted the next day in an official press statement, which was contradicted the day after the RFEC Final Resolution when they changed the dates to make it seem like they had no time to have given input. But I'm not looking up all the links, so I'll go with this one:

“Radios have brought a pattern to racing that makes them more boring. The fact is, these guys (sport directors) have completely brought it down to a boring contest,” he said. “If you ask Bjarne Riis who will win the Tour, he could probably tell you on the exact mountain in the exact stage when Alberto Contador will try to win the Tour. If you have 200 riders, who going to race for three weeks, over the Alps, the Pyrenees, across all of France, yet weeks before hand you can say when and where he’s going to win the Tour, then there’s something that’s gone wrong that’s not good for our sport. There should be more possible outcomes than just one formula.”

Does he think that Riis & Contador have been having secret discussions about the Tour de France course over race radio, or did they do like so many cycling journalists and look at the course profiles and mark their calendar for the key stages with key climbs?

Contador's take on race radio:

To me, nobody tells me when I have to attack. In the 2009 Tour, I did it in Andorra because I had good legs and it didn’t put the team in jeopardy, even though later there was controversy with Armstrong. We’re not a PlayStation. A director can’t tell us: “You will attack on Saturday.” No, I’ll attack when I have the strength.

McQuaid a few days later.

It’s like PlayStation. That’s what these team directors have become

http://velonews.competitor.com/2011...velonews-‘no-compromise-on-race-radio’_164242

 

[JPM London]

First of all his comparison with the speed example is actually opposite.

You'd lower the speed limit to increase safety on roads whereas the argument is that removing the radios will lower safety. Hence his example should have been increase speed limits - I'd like to see the country that could increase the speed limit without a public outcry from at least some organisations...

I like the last bit from the article best:

It was a great race, because of bad luck and crashes. There were 60km of intensity.

Right, so we want more crashes in races, because it makes good television?
And he doesn't understand the riders and teams are worried about his concerns for safety??

 

[roundabout]

What 'other issues' were these? Granted my grip on German's not brilliant, but I have never seen any evidence to suggest that ARD and ZDF killed cycling coverage for any reason other than doping.

lol at Fat hinting that as long as product is interesting doping is secondary.

 

[JPM London]

Does he think that Riis & Contador have been having secret discussions about the Tour de France course over race radio, or did they do like so many cycling journalists and look at the course profiles and mark their calendar for the key stages with key climbs?

It's not even just that! The quote you chose actually shows that teams are planning the races to a higher degree than before. It shows cycling is more competitive and the quality of riders in a broad sense is higher. It shows that teams have to constantly focus on saving energy and not spending it unnecessarily, but utilise it with greatest possible effect.

First of all that's got nothing to do with radios - second of all it doesn't show that racing has become more boring as it actually implies increased competition.

Well, it might be more boring - his statements just didn't back it up as it was completely unrelated to radios (as you said) and actually argued the opposite.

 

[JA.Tri]

PMc gets up my nose

Unfortunately the obstruction is so large it has become an immovable object!

While I understand that P Mc desires a "more competitive" environment on the road; "no radios" does not necessarily deliver on that objective (as others have said, far more eloquently).

More importantly (again as others have indicated) P Mc is apparently quite happy to subjugate safety for the possibility of more animation/spontaneity in the peloton (and hence "the race").

I recon that is bloody poor prioritization Mr Mc!

There are so many expletives I would love to use, but I'll make do with "pusillanimous, inconsiderate moron".

 

[Archibald]

Does he think that Riis & Contador have been having secret discussions about the Tour de France course over race radio, or did they do like so many cycling journalists and look at the course profiles and mark their calendar for the key stages with key climbs?

Contador's take on race radio:

Quote:
To me, nobody tells me when I have to attack. In the 2009 Tour, I did it in Andorra because I had good legs and it didn’t put the team in jeopardy, even though later there was controversy with Armstrong. We’re not a PlayStation. A director can’t tell us: “You will attack on Saturday.” No, I’ll attack when I have the strength.

McQuaid a few days later.

Quote:
It’s like PlayStation. That’s what these team directors have become

aw cr@p... so what Pat means is that when i'm playing PCM I can't look at the stages to work out where and when to do what...
I've been hanging out for the version of PCM that comes with the headset like that Navy Seals game so I can bark the orders while sitting at my laptop. It would so add to the realism of the game...

 

[Met de Versnelling]

aw cr@p... so what Pat means is that when i'm playing PCM I can't look at the stages to work out where and when to do what...
I've been hanging out for the version of PCM that comes with the headset like that Navy Seals game so I can bark the orders while sitting at my laptop. It would so add to the realism of the game...

You know what, that's not such a mad idea, i really like that...

 

[Jamsque]

The day PCM adds voice recognition such that shouting 'VAI! VAI! VENGA! VENGA!' makes your riders go faster in ITTs is the day I get back on board.

 

[El Pistolero]

The day PCM adds voice recognition such that shouting 'VAI! VAI! VENGA! VENGA!' makes your riders go faster in ITTs is the day I get back on board.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BY8_caWgBc

Watch near the finish at the sprint. The commentators are sooo funny. Especially the VAI VAI VAI part.

 

[Michael Brown]

I think that Fat Pat is going to get a great personal understanding of the "law of unintended consequences" in 2011.

 

[mastersracer]

this thread is clearly the result of the mafia Western European culture; it needs some Anglo Saxon posters to clean it up...

 

[usedtobefast]

this thread is clearly the result of the mafia Western European culture; it needs some Anglo Saxon posters to clean it up...

i don't airpower alone will get rid of him, although a cruise missile could scare
the bejesus out of him.

 

[L'arriviste]

“Even though the Spanish federation told us that had no effect on their decision, we will never really know that ... And the public and the cycling fans and cycling family will never really know.

... [A] credible and just and fair result is to take it to a higher authority ... that has credibility, that has the capacity to deal with this case and which the sports family will accept.

It's in the interest of the sports movement, the Tour de France and the athlete himself...

Who's had a speaking points briefing this morning?

Yeah you knows it.

 

[Archibald]

because I'm not Spanish, I don't have any problems with his statement about why they're going to CAS. Not sure he needed to make the announcement in the first place, though. Should just get on with it instead of all this posturing...

 

[theswordsman]

McQuaid January 9, 2011

"As of Friday, when I left the UCI offices, we had received nothing from the Spanish Federation about Contador," McQuaid told Cycling Weekly on Sunday.

"We have had no contact with them over this case."

McQuaid's comments cast serious doubt over a report in El País newspaper in Spain on Sunday that the Spanish Federation had sent documentation to World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the UCI and the Spanish Anti-Doping Agency in a bid to obtain a joint verdict on Contador's case.

The report, citing anonymous sources inside the RFEC, even went so far as to claim that the UCI had responded positively to the initiative and would be delivering a verdict by January 23

Enrico Carpani January 10, 2011 response to Tuttobiciweb about the El Pais article, contradicting McQuaid

The Spanish Federation has submitted a complete dossier on all that has been done, asking the UCI and WADA an opinion on what has been done so far. By 24 January the UCI will decide on a confidential basis on the activities of RFEC and will always be the Spanish Federation have to hand down the sentence.

January 10, 2011 UCI press release

10.01.2011
Description:

Following reports in today’s press concerning developments in the case of Alberto Contador – and in particular exchanges between the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the Spanish Federation (RFEC) during this stage of the proceedings – the UCI wishes to provide clarification in order to avoid any misunderstanding of the respective roles of the parties involved.

On 10 December 2010, the RFEC sent the UCI documentation relating to the preparation of the case, requesting an opinion by the UCI Anti-Doping Commission on the scientific content of this dossier.

This is completely standard practice, and the UCI welcomed the RFEC's request. The UCI responded by letter on 20 December 2010 – the date of receipt of the dossier – to set a provisional deadline for response of 24 January 2011, subject to a possible extension relating to the translation of the appended documents from Spanish as well as a comprehensive examination of these by the UCI Anti-Doping and Legal departments.

The UCI thus confirms that all the scientific information of the case is currently being studied by the above-mentioned departments and that the RFEC will receive the requested opinion as soon as possible.

The UCI however reiterates that the RFEC's action is purely consultative as the responsibility for the decision at this stage of a disciplinary procedure lies solely with the rider's National Federation.

If necessary, the UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency have the option to appeal the RFEC’s decision.

UCI Press Service

http://www.uci.ch/Modules/ENews/ENe...p?MenuId=MTI2Mjc&LangId=1&1602917X57X56Page=3

Carpani interview February 11, 2011, 4 days before RFEC decision, explaining why the UCI did not submit the promised scientific feedback to the Competition Committee

Enrico Carpani, press chief of the UCI, was in the Spanish capital on Friday bound by Pat McQuai. The head of the international organization Carpani sent to bring some light to a case where they consider that they are misrepresenting the views of the UCI.

The Swiss journalist wanted to excuse your body for the late reply on the report that he sent the Committee Copetición. "We sent over 600 pages in Castilian, full of technical reports that had to be translated. And, as sent by regular mail, arrived in Switzerland not until 10 January," so did not arrive until the 24th

http://www.marca.com/2011/02/11/ciclismo/1297455759.html

 

[L'arriviste]

I have had enough of this High Moral Ground from you and I am refraining myself from writing exactly what I am thinking ... when I have finished with the teams today you will have plenty to "reflect" on and communication will be the furthest thing from your mind!!

Sir. Yes. Sir!

 

[Jamsque]

I see McQuaid has moved beyond the realm of 'thinly veiled threats' and into the realm of 'poorly expressed threats'.