Honestly, I don’t know what’s going on with this guy?
Maybe it’s just perception versus reality, maybe I am missing the big changes the Frenchman is bringing to pro cycling or maybe it’s all happening behind the scenes and I just need to be patient.
But all that said, after one year in office, all I’m getting from Lappartient is bluster and hot air. What, exactly, has the man accomplished besides the simple task of testing for motorized doping?
It seems to me that Lappartient has a public pronouncement on most everything but there’s no action behind the words. He doesn’t want Chris Froome to race the Giro and Tour until his salbutamol case is resolved. Froome rides anyway.
The Tour’s Christian Prudhomme begs Lappartient and the UCI to resolve the Froome case but Lappartient, the president of the governing body, says he has not control over the situation and ultimately lets WADA do the dirty work.
He laments the budget advantage of Team Sky and the way they dominate grand tours but does nothing to improve the financial structure of the sport or improve relationships with sponsors.
He wants to remove power meters from the races but has no plans or ideas on how to accomplish that goal. When riders are in open revolt against their institutionally unrepresentative union, Lappartient has no constructive input.
This was a man who replaced the quiet and ineffectual Brian Cookson. So, what, now we have vocal and ineffectual?
The Frenchman is happy to give his opinion on Bradley Wiggins’ pro-Lance Armstrong quotes but it’s just another opinion — it carries no weight, it changes nothing.
Lappartient campaigned as a man of action, a smart political operator, a person who could bring all the stakeholders together more effectively, a guy with more useful connections to A.S.O, the organization that runs the Tour de France and other high profile races.
Well, after twelve months, I’m not seeing anything substantial being accomplished. He’s quotable but his first year is far from notable.
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