April 7/12 16:22 pm - Wheels of Bloor team Statement regarding M1 Race at Good Friday - A Rebuttal

Posted by Editoress on 04/7/12
 

I feel that the WOB statement needs some sort of rebuttal as it seeks to collectively absolve the WOB team of any responsibility in the DQ of the M1 field. This is not accurate and by publically airing their grievances and attempting to deflect blame I believe this calls into question their sporting behavior. I believe the vast majority of racers in the M1 field would agree that the marshals made the right call – with the majority of the pack breaking the yellow line rule on the 3rd lap they had no choice but to enforce the rule and punish us collectively. It is unfortunate the few riders that didn’t break the rule, including the WOB riders at the front of the pack and several others valiantly battling it up the right hand side in the cross wind, were DQ’ed but in the group of riders in the left-hand gutter and drafting the police vehicle were many of the 13 WOB riders. These riders were as guilty as the rest of the pack in both breaking the rules and preventing the officials from getting to the front of the peloton and verifying who, if any, in the lead group were guilty of rule violations. A more accurate and honest statement from WOB would have accepted equal responsibility for the mass DQ, noting that the two or three riders they had at the front had not broken the rules.


As WOB condemn the actions of the rest of the pack on lap 3 they’d be well served to reflect on the poor riding and sportsmanship of many of their team members on lap 1 and 2 of the race where they (along with riders from other teams) were flagrantly breaking the yellow line rule for positioning. This elicited many comments from the pack but the collective response of the WOB team was to shrug their shoulders rather than reign in their team members. This makes their statement ring more false – collectively they are proclaiming innocence while, in fact, they have as much responsibility in the resulting mass DQ as any rider in the field and helped to establish the pattern of rule breaking early in the race.


Finally WOB end by saying the day was a complete waste of time, effort and money. It was not and in conversations with many other riders after the race the opposite sentiment was expressed. Valuable lessons were learned – we’re privileged to be able to race, supported by the OCA, cycling clubs and communities, and by breaking the rules for some modest amount of sporting glory we risk much. It’s not worth breaking the rules.

Best regards, Gavin Brown

Note:  This issue is now closed.  Please continue the discussion in the Forums - editoress