Paul Kimmage got straight into broadcaster Sean O'Rourke about his "journeymen" remark when he joined his sports panel on his RTE Radio 1 programme yesterday.
Last week we brought you the transcript of a discussion on the Today With Sean O’Rourke show on RTE Radio 1 in which the host described the three Irish riders in the Tour de France as “journeymen”.
They were, he said, “working for others”. And Nicolas Roche in particular was “there to make Chris Froome look good”.
Since then Dan Martin has gone close to two stage wins, Nicolas Roche's Team Sky has taken yellow and very nearly won the team time trial while Sam Bennett, despite being ill before and during the race, took a top 10 in his first Tour.
The conversation – a panel chat on the weekend of sport chaired by O’Rourke and also featuring GAA pundits Damian Lawlor and Mags D’Arcy - annoyed us here at stickybottle.
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It got under our collar not just because O'Rourke was dismissive of the Irish riders, but because of the way those in other sports not competing at the same level as the Tour riders were so lavishly praised for, in the greater scheme of things, relatively minor achievements.
Players in inter county hurling and Gaelic football teams were showered with adulation.
And Irish competitors in amateur golf tournaments and college swimming meets were spoken of in similar terms.
But when it came to Martin, Roche and Bennett; they were smacked down with a throwaway remark by host O’Rourke.
Host Sean O'Rourke couldn't resist a dig at Paul Kimmage over his newspaper's scant coverage of the Irish trio in the Tour de France on Sunday.
To his great credit, Damian Lawlor of the Sunday Independent was in touch with us here on stickybottle after we had done our piece highlighting O’Rourke’s remarks, as well as Lawlor’s own contribution to the programme.
He accepted he was too negative about the three Irish riders and took to Twitter to hold his hand up in that regard.
He was perhaps caught on the hop a little by O’Rourke’s remark last week and we know he went on air yesterday armed with a lot of information about the Irish riders and was ready to give them a fair crack.
That opportunity was taken from him when Kimmage, who was on yesterday’s panel with Lawlor and GAA journalist Orla Bannon, summarised the Tour’s opening week before Lawlor got his chance.
But at least Lawlor accepted he came up a little short last week and was willing to right that and give the riders more respect. He certainly seemed very genuine when we spoke to him.
When O’Rourke asked Kimmage about the Tour on air yesterday, the former pro turned writer immediately seized on his chance to mention the journeymen remark of last week.
O’Rourke seemed to laugh it off at first.
But he couldn’t resist a couple of digs at Kimmage; not least pointing out his own Sunday Independent newspaper gave the three Irish only a short mention in Sunday’s edition.
But it was great nonetheless to hear Kimmage put O’Rourke on the ropes and defend the Irish riders.
We’ve put together the transcript and published it below.
Or you can click to hear the relevant section of the programme – just jump forward to the eight minute mark exactly and you can pick up the start of the Tour-related conversation a couple of seconds later.
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Transcript of yesterday's panel discussion
Sean O’Rourke: Paul you’ve been there, you’ve survived the Tour de France. Take us through the first week. Summarise where it’s at now; today’s a rest day and they are magically transporting themselves from Brittany to the foothills of the Pyrenees and then tomorrow week two starts in earnest.
Paul Kimmage: Well, I listened with great interest to this slot last week and the description of our; the journeymen.
Sean O’Rourke: Laughter as Kimmage spoke.
Paul Kimmage: It’s been a good weekend (more laughter from O’Rourke); it’s been a good weekend for Irish journeymen. We had the 10th place finish for young Sam Bennett on Friday. He’s riding his first Tour de France and he finished 10th. On Saturday Dan Martin went very close to winning the stage; the uphill finish at Mur de Bretagne. And yesterday Nicolas Roche missed out on a stage win with his team by half a second, which was really, really hard to take.
Sean O’Rourke interjects: These are the journeymen who barely got a mention in The Sunday Independent yesterday, by the way. Go on anyway.
Paul Kimmage: And you know what, you are absolutely right.
Damian Lawlor: Oh, touché!
Sean O’Rourke: That’s 15 all!
Paul Kimmage: That is 15 all; that’s 15 all. You are absolutely right. I was actually apoplectic on Friday. I was listening to the sports news, the 6 o’clock sports news, and Bennett had just finished 10th and it wasn’t even mentioned. And I’m thinking ‘how does this work, this young Irish kid finishes 10th on a stage of the Tour and it’s not worth a mention’. Have we disengaged from the race? Does it not matter? I don’t know.
Sean O’Rourke: But maybe you and others have heaped such doubt in people’s heads about whether this is genuine or not...
Paul Kimmage: Absolutely.
Sean O’Rourke: .... maybe we are losing interest?
Damian Lawlor: I’ll put my hands up there because I got absolutely slated for your journeymen comment last week, Sean. And I got all these anti GAA texts (and) I never mentioned the word journeymen or GAA last week. My story is very, very simple. I grew up watching the likes of yourself (Paul Kimmage) and Roche and Kelly; and Martin Earley was a huge hero of mine. I used to tune in for the Nissan Classics and I used to love everything about it. As I grew up, I read all the books, read your coverage; looking at what happened with the UCI. And I lost faith in it. And I lost complete interest in it along the way as well. And I certainly would be of that feeling; is it genuine, what’s going on? And the one issue I raised last week was the team sport versus the individual and, you know, I don’t mind getting slated for that because it’s a debate. I read your piece on Sam Bennett and he’s a guy I would have seen at the Canon Hayes awards years ago and I want to believe in a guy like him and hopefully it will come to pass.
Sean O’Rourke: OK Paul, is it genuine now?
Paul Kimmage: Well, one of the other sports covered last week was Wimbledon and nobody asks is Wimbledon genuine. I mean, I watched it yesterday and it’s so; the BBC coverage is so chummy. Everybody’s friends with everybody else. You know; how dare anybody even suggest that these gladiators who walk off the court after five-hour games and then get up the next day like nothing has happened are even taking a Panadol. You know, nobody even asks that. It’s like you wouldn’t dare suggest that there is a doping problem in tennis when you look at the level of controls and the testing. And it’s quite obvious as a sport that they decided; ‘look, we’re keeping this out of the room. We’re not going to engage with this at all’. (And it is) because of what happened with the Tour de France. They look at the Tour and they look at the way people look at it now so sceptically and they say ‘we’ll manage this problem’.
Sean O’Rourke: Do they test them in tennis?
Paul Kimmage: Once a year.
Orla Bannon: Yeah they do. The reason probably why people in this country have stopped watching the Tour de France or reading about cycling is because everybody is out cycling. I mean, you’re nobody in this country any more unless you don some Lycra and buy a flash bike. Ten years ago nobody in this country; there wasn’t too many people on bikes apart from old men tucking their trouser legs into their socks. And now everybody is out cycling.
Paul Kimmage: I hear you Orla. Actually the question I have been asked so much for the last month is ‘are you going to the Tour?’ All these people; they still want to read about it. They are still engaged by it. OK, they will look at it differently now, but they are still engaged with it. Personally, I am engaged by the fact we’ve got three Irish guys there. I’m interested in how they’re going to do. And I’m also interested in ‘what can I believe?’ I cannot answer that question yet. We’re getting into the first mountain stage tomorrow, I’ll be in a better position to answer it next week. But at the moment I’m standing back and saying ‘well I’m still trying to figure out what exactly we’re looking (at) here’.
Sean O’Rourke: Ok we’ll leaving cycling there for the moment.
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