Andrew McQuaid spoke in defence of Jonathan Tiernan Locke previously, but says he has no obligation or desire to answer questions about the rider now that the process against him is over.
Having spoken publicly in defence of his then client Jonathan Tiernan Locke last year when doping allegations were levelled against the former Team Sky rider, cycling agent Andrew McQuaid has proven more media shy now the case has concluded.
He has now said he is not obliged to answer any questions on the case, citing privacy.
McQuaid last October confidently expressed his view that anomalies detected in Tiernan Locke’s biological passport could be explained and that the case would go no further.
Said McQuaid when news of the controversy broke: “We are currently planning to answer the questions raised by the UCI and we’re extremely confident that, once we present our answers, the case won’t go any further.”
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This week the Briton’s two year ban, first revealed by the UCI in July, was confirmed by UK Anti Doping. In its decision, it names EPO as the substance at the centre of the case.
The rider has never failed a drug test, though it has emerged his samples at the Tour of Britain in 2012, which he won, were not tested for EPO.
Tiernan Locke said binge drinking just days after that win, and days before the 2012 World Championships, skewed his first, baseline bio passport samples. However, this was rejected.
The blood sample was given on September 22nd, 2012, just six days after Tiernan Locke had won the Tour of Britain overall and one day before he rode the elite men’s race at the World Championships in Holland.
McQuaid, leading, riding as an amateur in Ireland for University College Dubin Cycling Club in the years before the bike game became his livelihood and he began building a tidy stable of riders, including some very big names.
On the basis McQuaid had entered the debate last year in defence of Tiernan Locke, stickybottle contacted him seeking comment now that the full decision on the rider had been released this week, bringing the process against Tiernan Locke to a close.
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Stickybottle put a number of questions to McQuaid; on the nature of any role he played in the rider’s defence, his policy as an agent on representing doped riders, whether he was surprised the case had gone much further than he predicted and if he regretted, or now felt damaged by, defending the rider at the time.
McQuaid, a former amateur cyclist turned agent, did not answer the questions and said he did not want to make any comment.
“I run a private business and as such am under no obligation to comment on how I run my business, and to be honest I do not feel the need to, or have the desire to.”
He declined to say whether he still represented the rider, though UK Anti Doping’s decision published this week refers to him as Tiernan Locke’s “manager” in 2012 and 2013. There is no reference to this year.
McQuaid was one of a small number of people to submit evidence to the UK hearing on July 1st of this year, though his took the form of a written submission rather than the oral presentation given by the rider and Brian Smith.
Smith was Tiernan Locke’s manager in 2012 at the Endura team; the period in which the authorities have decided Tiernan Locke doped.
It was during that year that he won the Tour of the Mediterranean, the Tour du Haut-Var and Tour of Britain and on the basis of which he was offered his contract with Team Sky for 2013 and 2014.
Tiernan Locke continues to protest his innocence but says he simply cannot afford to launch an appeal, which can be a lengthy and expensive process. He has claimed the biological passport system, ironically introduced by the UCI under the presidency of McQuaid's father Pat McQuaid, is flawed.
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