Your brother is a vindictive bully and should be ashamed of the role he has played in covering up the doping scandals during his continuing reign as president of the UCI. I am ashamed that he is Irish. I am very proud of Paul kimmage and the written work that he has produced over the years. I also note that yourself and your brother are or were both employed by Pat McQuaid..isn’t this nepotism?

This has got very little to do with doping, it has very little to do with wether Kimmage doped, the UCI covered up doping, its all about the UCI – or Pat & Hein because the rest of the UCI must be wondering what an earth they have got themselves into – picking the targets they thought were easy for some PR.

First Floyd, a guy they has very little money and certainly not the means to defend himself, they win the case (although floyd was unable to contest it because they couldnt find him to serve the paperwork) and they get to make a big song and dance about how how Floyd isnt allowed to say bad things about them.

Then next up Paul. A guy that lost his job nearly a year ago, and so to their mind, like Floyd, wouldnt have the means to defend himself. Another unopposed case in the Swiss Courts, another “Win” for the UCI, and they get to crow about how now Paul isnt allowed to say bad things about them anymore..

Well they stuffed that one up didnt they, they didnt reckon on the level of fan support not just for Paul, but the level of fan anger against the UCI. You might say, its only 1500 out of millions of cycling fans, true, but 1500, that in the height of a global recession, feel strongly enough to dip in their pockets.

Maybe im wrong, maybe the UCI arent just picking on those who cant defend themselves (or they think dont have the means to), then why arent they suing Tyler Hamilton or Dan Coyle, theyve put in writing that test were covered up, and in countless interviews since.. maybe its because those two do have the means to defend themselves. Why arent they suing David Walsh? Hes said just as bad as kimmage in several articles and interviews, oh yes, because Kimmage is the golden boy at the Sunday Times and the UCI would have the full weight of the best lawyers Murdoch could throw at them. Why dont they sue Greg Lemond.. oh yes, hes the American Hero, that would be a pretty bad PR move.

This isnt about doping, or Kimmage, or McQuaid or any petty arguments they had 30 years ago during races, this is about a last desperate stand by Hein and Pat to prove they were right, the journalists were wrong, and they can use the same bully boy tactics theyve used for the last 15 years to scare people into silence..

Guess what.. We aint scared anymore.

Darryl

I agree that the UCI has been aggressive in the fight against doping in the years since the ‘Festina Affair’ and Operation Puerto and from what I know there is no other sport or professional body that tests and exposes their athlethes like the world of cycling. I often use that argument when friends comment on how dirty our sport is. It’s the extra effort we put in to exposing the cheats that in turn makes the sport look worse. But that fight must continue.

In relation to the history between Mr Kimmage and your brother, I can’t comment on that and did not know that they had moved in such close circles in their racing careers. You are right, it is entirely possible that Kimmage does have a personal vendetta, but that is the first time I have heard such a hypothesis and so had not fully considered it. Such a long, protracted and public method of bringing that vendetta to fruition seems as if it would be difficult to sustain and I wonder why the UCI or Pat McQuaid have never raised this. For me, support of the Paul Kimmage Defence Fund is not because I believe he has all the answer, or that the UCI, Messers McQuaid and Verbruggen are the ‘bad guys’ – I believe a fair enquiry should be heard.

People love a fighter. They love the underdog. And they love to fight the system. It’s not surprising that many fans of the sport who have such a dislike for the doping side of our sport blame the system and in turn the governing body.

Thank you for the time you took to reply. If you want to get in touch, I’d love to publish your views on the subject in greater detail.

Steve

Pat McQuaid and Paul Kimmage both went on to join Professional teams and both were undoubtedly faced with the temptation/pressure to take drugs to enhance their performance. Paul Kimmage raced away for a number of years, as he admitted himself in his infamous book, taking drugs to improve his performance and just stay in the game as a domestique while Pat McQuaid it would seem took the decision after not more than a year as a pro that without taking drugs he would not have what it took to get to the top in bike racing so he retired from racing and pursued another career as a race promoter and then with the Irish Cycling Federation and UCI.

Only when Paul Kimmage retired from racing, and no longer had a vested financial interest in keeping quiet about it, did he write his book about the sport being rife with drugs!! Where is the integrity in that? Since he bore his soul, he has seemed intent on pinning the responsibility for his poor moral choice on the shoulders of others, be they Pat McQuaid, Hein Verbruggen, the UCI in general or Lance Armstrong to name but a few of his targets. Is Paul Kimmage resentful that Pat McQuaid didn’t have the weakness of character Paul demonstrated by taking drugs and turning a blind eye to the immorality of what he was making a living at.

I am not for a minute saying that cycling does not have to seriously clean its act up – it does. The UCI has a major part to play in that. But I believe that in comparison to other sports the UCI has been aggressive in its fight against doping since Pat took office. It is not an easy task because they are constrained by the Laws of the land.

I was personally affected by the dishonesty of the peloton when in 1998 I was a publisher of a number of cycling magazines, including the Official Guide of the Tour de France. We had invested heavily in the Guide that year, producing English, French, German and even an Irish language edition to celebrate the Tour’s Grand Départ in Ireland. When the Festina affair hit the fan it had a huge impact on our sales and we lost a lot of money that year which eventually put us out of business. So I could easily feel that the greed and dishonesty of the riders played no small part in costing me my livelihood. But ultimately I take responsibility for the decisions I took.

Paul Kimmage, through the notoriety he gained from the controversy surrounding his book has gone on to write about other sports including football and golf. I don’t see him delving into the rights, wrongs and corruption in those sports and there are many issues. Of course not, he is not going to bite off the hand that feeds him….yet again. It’s easy for him to pull cycling’s house down – he doesn’t stand to lose out financially from that any more. Sadly, it seems as if he feels it may purge him of his own feelings of guilt. I fear it won’t.

A lot is said about the fact that Paul Kimmage in currently unemployed. It may just be that he is not a very good writer and publishers may consider him to be more of a liability. He seems to have a strong sense of ‘entitlement’ both as a former professional bike rider and now as a would be journalist.

Paul Kimmage has some support of late among journalists, many of them my friends and former colleagues, because the truth is many of them are running for cover. They have written for years about the ‘heroic, superhuman’ exploits of top cyclists, knowing full well that many of them were using performance enhancing drugs. The journalists were not willing to confront the cyclists with their suspicions because it would probably have meant they would no longer have access to them for interviews etc. Now that the genie is out of the bottle they too are trying to position themselves on the moral high ground. I for one am not convinced!!

All I’m asking for here is a bit of balance in the discussion. Paul Kimmage is being painted as a saint and Pat McQuaid as a villain. Neither portrayal is true. Paul Kimmage is a former doper. He lied to the fans and no doubt to his family and friends for years while he raced. He says he didn’t take any of the hard stuff because he couldn’t afford it… Perhaps that’s like Lance Armstrong saying he didn’t dope. We only have their word for it.