May 5/08 8:29 am - Something Fishy in the State of Uruguay?

Posted by Editoress on 05/5/08
 

Last night, Svein Tuft won the Individual Pursuit at the Pan Am Track Championships, giving Canada its first gold medal at the meet. As team manager Dan Proulx reported earlier, a sudden schedule change meant that both Tuft and Zach Bell missed the Scratch Race that they were supposed to race later in the evening. Given the notorious reputation that certain South American organizers have of stacking the odds in favour of locals, the following comments from Zach may not be too far off the mark.

Svein won the Pursuit with a time of 4:46, he raced the Argentinean in the final.

After he won they pushed his award ceremony up in front of the scratch race (earlier on the schedule) then took him into doping control. While he was in doping they started the Scratch Race [1 hour] early.

This was just as I was arriving at the track. They didn't even give me time to put my skin suit on. So there is a major screw job going on there. The effect of their decision-making kept Svein and I out of the race...all the other racers started cold with no warm up.

Spin this one how you want to...but it is a really fishy situation if you ask me. Especially since Dan Proulx said they were really interested in the fact that Svein and I were racing at the meeting. So yeah, just wanted you to know what happened if you see a DQ or DNS for the results from down here...