I am not a Cookson fan. Look at this tweet from Cookson yesterday. OK so we don't expect him to see every little decision his staff make and some fan-boy cretin has not kept up with Lance story and the role Eddy played in bringing Ferrari and Lance together. Eddy is old school. I used to adore him. I thought his end of his career weird and always found it at great conflict with the rest of his career. Now, with more mature eyes, I view him as a con-man, like so many in the sport and his career finale exactly matches his personality. Quite happy to rob to line his own pockets. More was never enough, when there was something else on the table to steal and sending his son to Ferrari shows that he is unreformed. I know for a lot that is like calling out Tom Simpson and is a big pill to swallow, but there is no half-way house.
OK so Cookson suddenly finds himself at a conference the UCI have put on to show that they are caring-sharing-loving and this is not a poisonous lake of broken contracts, deals completed under the table, with drugs everywhere. Cookson gets there and finds that a pair of old school dopers have been hired in by one of the less able in his staff. What should he do ? Well exactly like whoever handed the silver medal to Solovney the other day or to Vino in the Mal, smile politely and do the job, but don't endorse the action with any kind words and don't hang around for the photo shoot.
But what does the guy do - slips into fan-boy mode and gets a selfie done. And even as the cogs whir around in his brain and he prepares a tweet, he still can't work out what is so wrong about what he is doing. Now either he is too thick to work out that these pair are scum, in which case, he is not fit to be in office where being chief snake-catcher has to be the number one role, or he has let his own personal "fan boy" - oh it's my hero the great Eddy, swoon, man-crush, can I have a photo with him, - look where my petty politiking at an obscure local council working on regional development has got me - rubbing shoulders with my boyhood heroes - oh my - swoon - emotions take over, in which case, once again, he is entirely unsuited to the task ahead of him.
If he had any balls and a brain and really did want to tell the Juniors he cared about them, he would have stood up at the start and said. I am sorry I have had to cancel the guest speakers this afternoon. One of my staff was not aware of the full background of those individuals, as I President of the UCI am. Let me now tell you about our sport and the difficulty we all have in cleaning it up. During your career, you will probably come across many times, people who have doped in the past. Many of these individuals want you to dope so that they feel happy that they were so weak that they doped. So let me tell you how they con the innocent and turn, enthusiastic and innocent people, like many of you in front of me, and have corrupted this great sport ...............
