This Is what I said about the tour de F-ed last year.

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McQuaid thinks ASO wants private league

By JEROME PUGMIRE, AP Sports Writer Jul 16, 3:04 pm EDT

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FOIX, France (AP)—UCI president Pat McQuaid believes Tour de France organizers want their own private cycling league, and he accused them of using their showcase race to pressure teams not to renew their ProTour licenses for the 2009 season.
The 17 UCI ProTour cycling teams currently racing at the Tour all want a new system for organizing the sport, one which is outside of the cycling union’s current ProTour structure. That decision was reached Tuesday in agreement with the Amaury Sport Organization, which owns the Tour, and also in agreement with the Spanish Vuelta and Giro d’Italia.
“ASO have the teams in their hands for three weeks, so they put a type of pressure on them to go their way,” McQuaid said Wednesday by telephone. “When the ProTour started four years ago, ASO were out to try and kill the ProTour and kill professional cycling. Step by step they are succeeding in doing this.”

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Starting in 2004, the ProTour circuit had 15 events featuring 18 of cycling’s best professional teams.
But the owners of cycling’s three biggest races—the Tour, the Vuelta and the Giro—wanted total autonomy in running their own races and did not acquiesce to the demands of the ProTour.
In a statement Tuesday, 17 of the 18 ProTour teams said they will seek a “new system of organization for professional cycling.” Only Astana, which is excluded from this year’s Tour, has yet to sign.
McQuaid said ASO wants to take teams away from the UCI’s governance by “building up events, building up alliances to the events, and forcing teams to go their way.”
ASO, which owns races in Burkina Faso and Qatar and owns 49 percent of the Vuelta, has denied this.
McQuaid has written to all 17 teams telling them that their decision could lead to compensation claims from organizers whose races are on the ProTour calendar, such as Australia’s Tour Down Under and the Dauphine Libere—a prestigious Tour tune-up.
“The organizers in question could ask for accountability. Not just for the loss caused by the absence of your team, but equally for the loss of sponsorship, of television contracts,” McQuaid said in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press. “You will cause the loss of employment of many riders as well as the loss of protection that is afforded by the UCI to riders: minimum wages, bank guarantees.”
McQuaid also directly addressed Gerolsteiner team manager Hans Holczer—who had written to McQuaid on Tuesday on behalf of the 17 teams when informing him of their collective decision.
In the e-mail, obtained by the AP, McQuaid warns that breaking away from the UCI may lead to chaos.
“There will be continuous disputes between the directly interested parties in order to determine which teams and which races shall have access to, or leave, the elite level,” McQuaid said. “Teams will be opposed against teams, organizers against organizers, teams against organizers.”
BARLOWORLD’S BAD DAY: Having already lost team leader Juan Mauricio Soler through injury, the Barloworld team woke up before Wednesday’s 11th stage to the sound of police officers taking away Spanish cyclist Moises Duenas Nevado.
The Spanish cyclist had tested positive for the banned blood booster EPO after the fourth stage and was led away from the team’s hotel for questioning. With Soler abandoning last week because of injured wrists from a fall, that reduced the team to seven of its nine allocated riders.
By the end of the 11th stage from Lannemezan to Foix, the Barloworld team was down to just five.
Paolo Longo Borghini of Italy and Felix Cardenas of Colombia abandoned after crashing about 35 miles into the stage. Longo Borghini fractured his right collarbone and Cardenas had bruises on his right knee.
Cardenas had been sharing a room with Duenas Nevado during the race. Police raided that room Wednesday morning, finding banned products linked to Duenas Nevado, team manager Claudio Corti said. No other riders were implicated.
Soler was the King of the Mountains champion as best climber last year.
CHANGE THE SUBJECT: German rider Jens Voigt finished Wednesday’s sun-drenched 11th stage dripping with sweat, and was in no mood to answer questions about doping.
Asked by a German television crew to comment on the second doping case of the Tour so far—Spanish cyclist Moises Duenas Nevado tested positive for EPO— Voigt then had a brief but angry exchange.
Having calmed down, he then explained to a French crew what had made him so angry.
“You don’t have to talk exclusively about doping, doping, doping,” Voigt said in French with a heavy German accent. “The race is great, the (yellow) jersey has already changed five times here.
“The Tour de France is a beautiful event with many clean riders.”
Although Voigt said he understood the German journalist was just doing his job, he found the questions too negative.
“You have to give some credit to the riders who are doing their job clean,” Voigt said. “I got annoyed by this.”
FOOTBALL INJURY: Sprint ace Mark Cavendish is a big soccer fan—although maybe not for much longer.
The 23-year-old Cavendish, who has already won two stages with dashing sprints, had crashed in Monday’s 10th stage in bizarre circumstances when he swerved to avoid a soccer kicked onto the road.
“I’ve got quite a deep cut on my elbow. I thought there was some bone damage at first but that’s OK,” Cavendish said. “I hit my knee really hard and it’s quite painful.”
Cavendish said he hopes he can still count on the support of fans from the Isle of Man, where he grew up.
“It’s great to have support and to know that people are interested when I’m away from the Island racing,” Cavendish said. “When you know people are interested in what you do it makes it a lot more worthwhile.”
After finishing Wednesday’s 11th stage in 130th