Mike Plant article / UCI

[54ny77]

Velonews actually did a good piece of reporting here, asking 2 important questions, without bias, and letting the readers make their own conclusion.

The response to the 2 questions are comical. Did all these senior cycling administration guys (and riders) take the same class of, "How to Deflect Probing Questions by Bringing Up One's Spouse" during public relations school?

You just can't make up this kind of hypocrisy. "Holy cow, I have been duped!"

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http://velonews.competitor.com/2013/...evailed_304472

Question: What about people who have suggested that you are part of the sport’s past? You were president of USA Cycling’s board of directors from 1995 to 2002, during Lance Armstrong’s Tour de France reign.

Mike Plant: Well, I was off the Management Committee for four years [2005-2009]. And when I was before, [when Hein Verbruggen was president] I think the thing was running differently then. I am like everyone else. I had no idea what was going on. I wouldn’t have sat there if I did. I told people, “Hey, the guy got tested 500 times.” That’s all I know that works, in sports — you do tests. There will be some stuff that comes out, now, and I was told about it, and that’s what turned the switch for me. I thought, “Holy cow, I have been duped.”

Question: What about your past involvement with [U.S. Postal Service team backer] Thom Weisel, and with Lance Armstrong?

Mike Plant: I have known Lance for a long time. He has never worked for me. I have never worked for him. I have known Thom Weisel for a long time. If you are referring to the fact that Jim Ochowicz was working for Baird [Wealth Management] in Milwaukee, and I invested $100,000 in there, and lost about $40,000 of it, and then, during that time, he went and became a stockbroker for Thom, if people want to go and make issues about that, they can make issues about that all day. Eventually I closed my account and I lost my money. It didn’t have anything to do with Och and I trading doping secrets, I can tell you that.

That is the problem: People want to make issues out of things like that. Look, I can sit here with you, comfortably, today … that’s why I have a wife, who I have a very trusting relationship with, and I’ve always been able to look in her in the eye … I have no ghosts in my closet.