Stuey in Trouble

Oh, Stuey!

Here in the UK we are starved of information about the Tour Down Under, as there's no TV coverage at all, and because of the time-zone difference, there's not much chance of catching it on a computer stream either.

All we get are the scandals.. apparently Stuey is "in trouble" after attending an event as a guest speaker earlier this month: the chauffeur has complained about "aggressive behaviour" and ""very bad language" and has said that felt threatened, blah blah woof woof.

The Sydney Morning Herald would seem to be the best report to read, as all the others in the cycling press have been copied from that one.

And as an aside - check out the very top left of this screencap of the page.  Just overlook the fact that I've included my headers, which tells you that as well as blogging, I was on Twitter - see, multi-tasking - and had taken the trouble to read every report I could find before blogging... and look at the time.  See it? 4:15am Wed 18th. I am writing this at 17:45 on Tuesday...... hey, I'm a time-traveller!

Basically, this Chauffeur bloke waited from the 10th Jan - the date of the alleged assault - until the day before the TdU began before going to the press with his story. Not the police - he went to the press first.

How suspicious is that?

Stuey has roundly rebuffed it, and frankly I'm on his side on this one, even though I wasn't there. He points out that he was with his wife and two friends in the car, and I can't quite see Stuey, family man, getting violent with a chauffeur, with his wife in the car.

And what is this driver thinking about? If you are a professional chauffeur, and you get an unpleasant customer, you tell your boss "I'm not driving them again" and the boss either blacklists that client, or if they know them, they have a quiet word and remind them that their staff expect a certain level of behaviour, otherwise they will find themselves blacklisted.

You don't go blabbing to the press about it - and you certainly don't hold on to the story until the most damaging time possible to release it.

Yes, I know that Stuey isn't technically one of Our Boys any more, but come on, it's Stuey, we love him, and he'll always have a place in Schleckland.