In this interview with Lava:
http://lavamagazine.com/...nsion/#ixzz1xyx6Sa6H
Andrew Messick appears to be holding the company line.
The article mentions a meeting of WTC's board of directors....who is on the board?
Certainly solid representation from Providence Equity. Slowman, are you privy to the structure of the board and where the majority of voting shares are. I'd guess they are more or less all in the hands of the Providence folks.
Andrew mentions that all the folks at WTC were looking forward to seeing Lance race, but they are sticking to their rules, which are fine. But it appears that they are being even more stringent than their rules require them to be. Lance is not under investigation YET. He could have raced IM France as a bare minimum.
It is also a bit of a coincidence that Lance was able to start his Kona qual run when the feds dropped their case against him and he was immediately barred by WTC as soon as USADA released their letter. My view is that Andrew Messick who came from the Tour of California saw the upside of involving Lance at the ToC and wanted to enable the same with WTC. Providence may have held that back until the feds dropped their investigation and only then they gave the green light. The red light is on now on account of the USADA letter (not a formal investigation yet as far as I understand).
The guys running WTC are sports guys. The guys running Providence are private equity guys. They probably don't want an association with Lance resulting in a devaluation of the brand on account of an investigation potentially starting, or having Lance win Kona and then an investigation from his cycling days mean he has to server a sanction from triathlon (even though he could keep his hypothetical Kona win).
That's my guess. The guys running WTC are fairly rational when it comes to growing this sport. Like many companies, hands of management can be tied with what board members want. At least this is my take. It just seems weird that the organization that brought Lance in would quickly throw him under the bus this week and distance themselves as far as possible, when only 10 days ago, he was the WTC hero after Honu.
http://lavamagazine.com/...nsion/#ixzz1xyx6Sa6H
Andrew Messick appears to be holding the company line.
The article mentions a meeting of WTC's board of directors....who is on the board?
Certainly solid representation from Providence Equity. Slowman, are you privy to the structure of the board and where the majority of voting shares are. I'd guess they are more or less all in the hands of the Providence folks.
Andrew mentions that all the folks at WTC were looking forward to seeing Lance race, but they are sticking to their rules, which are fine. But it appears that they are being even more stringent than their rules require them to be. Lance is not under investigation YET. He could have raced IM France as a bare minimum.
It is also a bit of a coincidence that Lance was able to start his Kona qual run when the feds dropped their case against him and he was immediately barred by WTC as soon as USADA released their letter. My view is that Andrew Messick who came from the Tour of California saw the upside of involving Lance at the ToC and wanted to enable the same with WTC. Providence may have held that back until the feds dropped their investigation and only then they gave the green light. The red light is on now on account of the USADA letter (not a formal investigation yet as far as I understand).
The guys running WTC are sports guys. The guys running Providence are private equity guys. They probably don't want an association with Lance resulting in a devaluation of the brand on account of an investigation potentially starting, or having Lance win Kona and then an investigation from his cycling days mean he has to server a sanction from triathlon (even though he could keep his hypothetical Kona win).
That's my guess. The guys running WTC are fairly rational when it comes to growing this sport. Like many companies, hands of management can be tied with what board members want. At least this is my take. It just seems weird that the organization that brought Lance in would quickly throw him under the bus this week and distance themselves as far as possible, when only 10 days ago, he was the WTC hero after Honu.
Last edited by:
devashish_paul: Jun 16, 12 12:03