FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Open apology for race results problems

John Nicholson apologises to riders for tour race result problems

Blackburn, Victoria 2007-06-19 The Blackburn Cycling Club would like to thank volunteers and riders for participating in the 2007 De Bortoli Tour.

Overall the Tour was a huge success with no rider incidents involving traffic or police, increased rider participation, newspaper coverage, film footage, and a dinner with Phil Anderson as guest speaker.

By all accounts riders enjoyed the safely run event with full traffic management for the three stages and fully supported with lead and follow vehicles and spares support cars. The tour is our fourth and given the scenery and the multiple stages on a tough renowned hilly course, we believe the Tour provides a great experience for riders who aspire to developing and improving their road racing skills.

There were however, clearly, some problems with the posting of results and overall general classification. As a big part of a timed tour is knowing where you are from stage to stage so you can plan tactics and ride to your best advantage, it is a shame that we were unable to provide the results during the race as was planned. We apologise to all riders concerned. We did our best and unfortunately that was not good enough.

Sadly people, often only remember and dwell on the negatives rather than the positives, and we would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge the short comings in our tour but put them into perspective of the overall race.

There were many positives, including the very first opportunity for a teams stage race in the Victorian open series, and the dinner with Phil Anderson; not to mention the overall running of the tour, which was almost without flaw and we heartily congratulate our team of hard working and dedicated volunteers who gave up their whole weekend to provide cyclists with a safely run, well serviced, and properly organised race.

Organising a Tour is a huge undertaking and unfortunately we had our share of technical problems over the weekend, which let down the overall effort of the Blackburn volunteer group. I, and a few others worked tirelessly over the weekend to solve them. We had little sleep and were up till very late on Saturday night, doing our best to fix the issue but unfortunately our efforts did not pay off to provide you with the timely results that you needed.

Again, we apologise for any inconvenience caused. We assure you that our technical problems have been resolved and based on our team de-briefing on 9th May, we have a long list of learning outcomes which will form the basis for organising an even better 2008 Tour.

Sometimes with bike races things can go wrong and we had our share of problems. But just as disappointing was the behaviour of some cyclists towards our volunteers, some of which were abused. This was most disappointing and we do ask that all riders understand that such bike races depend on volunteers, so please at all times treat all volunteers with respect and courtesy. It wasn't their fault.

As President I take full responsibility. Please accept my sincere apologies. On behalf of the Blackburn Cycling Club and the Blackburn Committee I am truly sorry and we hope to see you soon at the next major Blackburn event, which of course is the Doherty Tour on the 17th-18th November 2007, and, as a points based tour, rest assured there is no likelihood of the same problems occurring again in race results.

Regards John Nicholson
Blackburn President
If you have any concerns or questions regarding this email, please do not hesitate to call our club publicity officer Nick Bird on 0419 101 572.

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