Monte Wehrkamp on our annual trek to Wisconsin

Genius rant by Monte Wehrkamp with commentary and edits by Christopher Cudworth. 

CLC: What follows is a stream on consciousness email from my co-blogger, mountain bike and road bike partner and general all-around curmudgeon genius friend Monte Wehrkamp. This is the kind of thinking we have been sending back and forth to each other by email for years. Well, it’s about time the rest of the world sees what a capable and insightful thinker this guy is, if a bit of a conspiracist. That’s why I love him. His conspiracies actually make sense. None of that “man never landed on the moon shit.” This is picking up clues like Sherlock Holmes and anticipating breaking news. Monte loves cycling. But he hates idiots. 

This piece (originally an email) starts with an excerpt from an article in Cycling News. Keep in mind Monte is an English major and copywriter at a marketing agency. This explains the early part of the article, in which he takes down a cycling writer for having crappy grammar. He’s right. Even a casual reader of cycling magazines and Internet sites finds this kid of crap all the time. Our only guess is that they’re too busy running around to bad hotels to actually spell or grammar check their work.

The article goes on to reveal some of Monte’s compelling insight about cycling and its possible money-laundering scheme, its relationship to drugs and how that may turn out to be the next wave of mea culpas in the sport. 

Take it away, Monte:

FROM CYCLING NEWS: “Many riders and teams use a tax avoidance scheme on their image rights contracts to limit their exposure to tax. Gazzetta claims that Scimone and the riders worked with a company called T&F Sport Management in Monte Carlo to register image right contracts and avoid tax.

“The contracts are apparently not registered with the UCI and the riders pay just six percent tax and then are able to transfer the cash to Switzerland and use it for various activities, including paying Dr. Ferrari for his services.  The Italian police have investigated if this has lead to money laundering.”

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/gazzetta-reveals-scale-of-doping-and-money-laundering-under-dr-ferrari

First, it’s led, goddammit. The past-tense of to lead is led. Otherwise, you’re describing what I use to weight my fishing hook. Or fill my mechanical pencil. FFS, Cycling News!

Okay. Sorry.

Remember, earlier this year, when there was a dust-up between Leopard SA and the Schlecks? About unpaid salaries? And those were defined as “image rights”?

Well, here’s what image rights are, in practice. A form of payment allowing riders to dodge taxes. It’s an end-around the UCI as well.

I finally learned what that meant today in this article on Cycling News covering the police investigation of Michele Ferrari. Seems that the good doctor would help cyclists  to dope, and also help cover the money tracks of his clients by accepting “Image rights” money laundered by T&F as payment for his, um, advice.

So perhaps Leopard SA was reluctant to help the Schlecks with this arrangement? And that was what the finger pointing and accusations were about? Cancellara was claiming non-payment of “image rights” money as well. (Is it possible Leopard knew the Italian federales were sniffing out the arrangement, so management was insisting their guys take salaries on the up and up, refusing to pay “image rights” so as not to implicate themselves as running a doping team?)

Two other big-name riders came out at the same time and said they had no problems getting their salaries: Horner and Voigt. Perhaps they’re not on the “image rights” program as they weren’t laundering their money or using it in the Ferrari system to get drugs. Both are adament they’re riding clean, and so far, nobody’s ever accused them of doing otherwise.

Which brings us to the fact that Frank (Schleck) has been tied to Ferrari in the past by making financial payments directly to him (Frank claimed it was just for training “advice” — does anyone, anywhere, still believe that Ferrari’s services including mapping out intervals and watt outputs, really?). And then Frank got popped for a masking diuretic at the Tour de France.

Frank’s “poisoning” defense is possible. It’s no secret the Schlecks wanted to ride together, and use their old training methods (whatever those may have been). And Johan Bruyneel (Radio Shack team manager) said no, you’re going to do things my way. And it’s now well-known (especially now that the USADA investigation is out) that Bruyneel was a dope pusher in the past.

Then there’s the allegations of “image rights” non-payment by the Schlecks. So maybe, Bruyneel had the motivation to see Frank got a spiked water bottle (in the recently broadcast 30 for 30 ESPN program on the Seoul 100 meter event, we learned that purposely spiking an athlete’s drink really does happen).

Horner’s defense of Frank at the time was kinda lame: We take drinks from fans all the time. I took probably 20 Cokes from strangers this Tour (every other pro rolled their eyes at that one – riders stopped taking drinks from road-side strangers decades ago). So that didn’t help Frank’s cause much.

Learning this “image rights” arrangement just kinda adds up to more incriminating  circumstances for Frank, now that we know that these payments are used to avoid taxes, and have been linked to Ferrari’s Swiss bank accounts.

And to think, when he was popped (for doping…) Frank wasn’t even close to being in contention. Nor was he doing much to help in the Team Classification either. He was kinda stinking it up out there. Payback, and payoffs, it seems, can literally turn out to be quite a bitch.

But until lately, no one’s had the guts to come out and bitch about it. Perhaps that is about to change as well.