Over the past few weeks, we have all raised our eyebrows at the appalling lack of management skills of Mr Bruyneel, who has been criticising his riders - in particular Andy and Frankie - for their lack of performance.
I don't need to run through the details again, but he made himself very plain, *bites tongue to resist obvious joke* not privately, but in the media. He even defended his decision to make these comments public. We all had our own views on How To Manage A Cycling Team, but we all agreed that telling riders off in public, threatening them with loss of trainers, loss of Tour places etc was not the way to motivate them.
He even suggested that Frankie was lying about his shoulder injury, the one that forced him to withdraw from the Giro, the race he'd be thrown into at five days' notice, with no proper preparation. And yet Frankie was perceptibly improving: he had done everything right - taking it easy for the first week, staying safely in the peloton out of trouble, not losing any time, getting his race legs on: he was finishing in the top 12 or 10, was it, which shows that he was indeed coming back into form, so why on earth would he want to throw all that "just because" or "just to show Mr Bruyneel that he couldn't be bossed about." I just don't believe that a professional athlete would do that.
I strongly believe that a top athlete could easily suffer from lack of confidence and therefore poor performance if he is demotivated, depressed and generally unhappy, as I have said before. But not that the athlete would deliberately drop out of a race for no good reason.
But Mr Bruyneel saw fit to criticise the whole team (except Fabu) and to tell the media that none of them had a place at the Tour guaranteed. Not even the bloke who is a consistent Top Two finisher.
Then, a couple of days ago, we get this charming little piece of criticism from the boss of Androni, talking about Rujano (who I think is a Ferengi in his spare time) who also dropped out of the Giro: "It's a good thing his contract ends this season", he told reporters at the Giro, "there are no second chances". Well, yar boo sucks to you, matey, it turns out that Rujano has mononucleosis, or Glandular Fever as it used to be known.
Now we get this news article about Stijn Devolder, in which his manager says "Based on the results we cannot possibly be satisfied" and goes on to say "And for that reason he might not qualify for the Tour.."
What is going one?
Why are team managers suddenly of the opinion that telling the press how unhappy they are with the performance of riders is acceptable?
What happened to "not washing your dirty linen in public"? (Old English expression, meaning that one should not air one's differences in front of other people, one should sort them out in private then tell the world once an agreement has been reached.)
How can it possibly help, in any given situation, to tell the press about it before discussing it with your rider?
How can any team manager come out of this well Do they seriously think that they will get sympathy from us, the fans? Do they fondly imagine that we are reading what they say and thinking "ah, poor man, those beastly riders are just not trying hard enough" and that we will then stand by the route shouting "Frankie? Put your back into it, you lazy lump, and do what that nice Mr Bruyneel tells you to."
If they do, then News Flash: you are presenting yourselves as bullies, trying to use the power (?) of the press to oppress your riders, trying to get public opinion on your side, as you have clearly failed to influence these riders using your own personality and management skills.
Please stop: let's go back to proper management, kept within the team.
Thank you.
