thank you monty. I agree 99%, though I give Julie a bit more of a pass than you. She probably hadn't heard everything and that is a great race for her, she isn't going to immediately want to see the worst.

---

---

Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

That is why i hope she either gets on her twitter, blog, or come here and clear up any misconceptions of her earlier defense of the race organization. She has a window, it will not stay open forever..

Never good to be an infidel ;-)

Dave

And how about Lance stepping up behind the scenes and taking care of business. Just imagine if the gal would have died, he would be in jail convicted of manslaughter or murder. For all you Lance haters, this is the stuff he does that usually never gets reported. Despite what many think, he cares about people, and just not the cancer stricken. I'm actually very proud of a lot of the pros these days, Jordan and other pros for coming to Lance's defense in the WTC debacle, in spite of his personal feelings, and now Lance using his wasta to get Starky out of what could have been a real midnight express situation..

Hey Monty, Julie has the right to have a different opinion without being called a shill.

A lot of people have a different opinion on this subject, if you read the previous thread about the subject you know that, and what you should be doing is to express your opinion, boycott whatever race you want, but bullying people that have a different opinion than yours is simply not acceptable.

---

-

The Triathlon Squad

Like us on Facebook!!!

Oh dear science let us not pollute a thread where we can have simple righteous anger at injustice by bringing up HIM!

---

---

Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

So what is her opinion? Did you already know this story before this article? For that matter what is your opinion now?

You will have to ask her. That's really not the issue. The issue is your rabid bullying in this matter.



Yes. This article doesn't really bring out anything new.



I am not sure who appointed you the Thought Police Kommissar here, can you please clarify?

---

-

The Triathlon Squad

Like us on Facebook!!!

I know Jack, and i have never participated in any of JRenfro's rants, or other lance love/hate threads. But this i feel is different, i mean really, it looks like he may have saved Starky from some really bad shit. The real story probably will not be told for sometime, as people feel that have to keep their mouths shut for whatever reason. But it sounds to me like lance's involvement might have just given enough wasta to starky to get out of that country before worst shit happened to him..

I humbly apologize for mentioning he who should not be named, but dude gets props from me on this one.

pot meet kettle

You never disappoint Paulo.

I was thinking pretty much the same thing on all counts.

One of the things I found disturbing was Dibens comment that we should or must respect other cultures? WTF was she thinking saying that, especially about a country who will throw a rape victim in jail,,,, for,,,,,,, being a rape victim! To be fair the rape victim won't be thrown in jail if there are enough male witness's who will testify that she was raped. I might have to tolerate it, regardless what Dibens says I don't have to respect it.

I or my girlfriend and I were seriously considering doing this race in the next couple of years, NFW now. I won't be doing any IMG races.

I guess based on Dan's article that Triathlon doesn't have the wasta the Formula 1 racing has in the UAE.

---

************************
#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

PS requesting that everyone be respectful of everyone's opinions? Did someone hijack your account? Did you get brainwashed during your forum absence?

+1

Paulo is the bully and never answers a direct question or has a real dialogue.

It looks to that from the article where she stated that there are two sides to every story and that we should respect other cultures that is exactly what she is doing isn't it?

Edited for grammar

---

************************
#WeAreTheForge #BlackGunsMatter

"Look, will you guys at leats accept that you are a bunch of dumb asses and just trust me on this one? Please?" BarryP 7/30/2012

Julie Dibens tweet was uncalled for, but I kind of assumed it had to do more with the victim being British so Julie was upset at how things were made to sound that the volunteer was at fault (no clue who is or isn't at fault, but as anyone who is riding a tri bike at 25 mph would assume, I think you know who was probably at fault or at least in a situation that caused the accident).

Other athletes have said that the race is not worth going to and I agree.

The slowtwitch article made the whole situation and country sound downright scary.

Paulo wants everyone to respect opinons as long as they are his own. Its perfectly fine for him to show a complete lack of respect for Monty's opinion though. At least a large majority of the tri world knows he's a complete tool. It's really comical how he is despised at all levels of the sport.

Andy was likely going faster than 25mph too!
he is fast!

---

---

Kat Hunter reports on the San Dimas Stage Race from inside the GC winning team
Aeroweenie.com -Compendium of Aero Data and Knowledge
Freelance sports & outdoors writer Kathryn Hunter

Normally i do not get too involved in threads involved with different athletes getting some constructive criticism from the ST brain trust. I was fully aware of the other thread about starky and kept a close eye on it, but did not get involved because i had questions. I wondered if he had done "anything" that might have lead to his situation, or made it worse. I could imagine a scenario where he got angry and said things to folks in power that inflamed the process. Not that it would have made anything different, but like people that get pulled over by cops and immediately get in their faces, sometimes you get back that bad karma. But there is no evidence or inference that anything like this happened. And a 15 minute trial to find you guilty of attempted manslaughter? I want to see who now defends this system and the people who run it.

And i agree that every country has a right to run it their own way, but we also have the right to know how that is so that we can make good decisions on our travel. I suppose some knew about all this, but i had no idea to what extent it went. It is crazy, and everyone should know that.

Really nothing new with the modus operand in Muslim governed countries.The super rich sheiks use buy westerns as tools and entertainment,example:tennis matches,horse racing,formula 1, etc.
I don't know why someone would choose to go there under their own free will especially women considering it is a misogynistic society.

I agree that every culture is unique and different and we ought to respect those cultures. But along those lines you also should know ahead of time what you might be in for if trouble strikes.

IE, getting rear ended at a traffic like by someone local is certainly not something I would have considered an act that would get me in trouble in any country or culture.

That is why we listen and learn.

and that is why the government pays for these athletic events. Bring in tourism $$. I highly doubt many Americans go though, most are probably British, or other European countries that may be more familiar with how the law operates, etc.


Just stick with the Disney trip in Florida.

...money talks....this would never happen to a Formula 1 driver or a tennis star, because the entire world would be outraged and it would be all over Eurosport, BBC Worldnews and CNN.

The entire concept behind these sporting events in the Middle East is to diversify their economies off oil and bring tourism dollar in. All the investment in hotels, airline infrastructure and their events is for that. If this happened to an F1 driver, it would be another story. Even if it happened to an F1 mechanic, totally different story.

The problem is that local authorities are not tied to the overall strategy of diversification through tourism. On the balance, you're either a local or foreigner. If you are a foreigner you get a different reception especially if you are on the wrong side of the law even if it all happened as part of a sporting event.

Triathlon pros are not known to BBC viewers, or CNN viewers. A triathlete stuck in jail after an event in Abu Dhabi it not hitting the front page of the New York times, so it's not going to derail the "diversification through tourism strategy". So the local cop, can continue to exercise his disdain of foreigners withouth the big guys in charge of the diversification strategy jumping in, givning him a kick in the pants and setting his straight.

Replace Starky with Lewis Hamilton or Roger Federer and there is an entire different layer of local UAE bureaucrats diving in to set things straight. Triathletes are just too poor and given that there is no name recognition of them in the international press, they won't get the same "fix up this PR mess" treatment....because in reality there is no PR mess that the local UAE government really needs to worry about.

I was considering this race, but I'll never set foot there. The entire incident reminded me again what place in the pecking order people with dark skin originally from India get in the UAE. Being born in Canada and having a Canadian passport will result in barely better treatment than the cockroach crawling out of the sewer grate if I ended up in a similar situation....no thanks man.

Kudos to Dan for elevating this story out of the bowels of the forum to the front page. Now it can be forwarded and tweeted and facebook "liked" and get way more coverage. A thread in the depth of the forum might get 2000 unique views....we need a lot more multiplication of the story.

And great to hear the involvement from LA to help a fellow athlete getting the short end of it. Well done.

Dont know everything about what happenned but you shouldnt take issue with what Dibiens said about other cultures. If you plan on going to other countries you BETTER know their laws and customs. Find it hard to believe you wouldnt know how extreme some countries in that region are. Sorry, but you cant plead ignorance when you break another countries laws. And as I said, it doesnt take a world traveler to understand the history of certain regions.