muscat said:
If cycling teams and managers are abusing their position, why should riders not be able to voice their concerns and why should fans not know? If the managers are competent they have nothing to fear. If they are behaving like despot dictators like Vaughters they deserve all they get. In the days of multi media, they are the ones who need to change, not gag the riders.
Unless it was in Thor's contract that he ride the Vuelta, then Jonathan Vaughters is not "abusing his position", he's making an executive decision.
The choice is between a business one (don't have Thor ride, as his points will go to a rival next year, instead choose 9 riders who will be with you next year) and a sporting one (we have more chance of winning things if Thor is in the team).
As is perhaps unsurprising given Vaughters' history, the business decision won out. No abuse of power, no abuse of position. Just a difficult choice, that some people happen to disagree with.
Usually, I think Vaughters can be insufferable and self-serving (see those Franchise ideas that would have prevented Garmin becoming a top team if they came in a few years ago, but now he wants the door shut behind him, or the whiny "join the dots" article that came across as being more about "haters" judging Jonathan Vaughters than Jonathan Vaughters judging Xavier Tondó, which was just an illustrative point for him to tell people to leave him alone). But this time, I don't see why he shouldn't be. Why is he in the wrong for wanting to safeguard his own team, not somebody else's?
I can also understand why Thor might be upset. Most definitely. He would want to defend that jersey, and he thinks he has a good chance - but he's being prevented from riding the races he had earmarked as training.
What I can't understand, however, is why this group of riders, who just coincidentally happen to be linked to the same team, are all up in arms about a decision that is made by another team boss relating to a rider that has nothing to do with the team of any of them? If the péloton was truly against it, you might expect people other than Australians who have been linked to GreenEdge to be involved. If it was a national thing, you might have expected Cadel Evans - who IS on the team Thor is going to - or Robbie McEwen - who is usually one of the first people to voice misgivings - to join in. But they haven't.
No, this appears more to me to be about GreenEdge Pro Cycling than it appears to be about Jonathan Vaughters or Thor Hushovd.
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