Paul Kimmage in his pomp, riding the Tour de France with RMO in the 1980s. He is back on the race this year to shoot a documentary, daily video diaries for the Irish Independent and to cover the race for the Sunday Indepedent. His gear has been robbbed but plenty of people have, thankfully, weighed in to help out him and his crew.
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By Brian Canty
Paul Kimmage and the film crew that are producing a documentary on the former pro rider turned journalist at the Tour de France have thanked those who have helped out in the wake of their equipment being stolen last Saturday in Corsica.
Thieves broke into their campervan on the morning of the opening stage, stealing three Apple Macbooks and an SLR camera.
The nasty incident has seen Kimmage’s video diaries for the Irish Independent newspaper website suspended for the last few days.
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As well as the diaries, the crew are filming for the ‘Rough Rider’ documentary which is to be released later this year and Kimmage is also covering the race for the Sunday Independent.
However, though appeals through social media as well as in the traditional media in Corsica yielded little in the way of any positive leads to reclaiming the equipment, the crew received many offers of help and replacement Macbook
Both Kimmage and the Twitter account for the Rough Rider documentary have tweeted their thanks to Jonathan Vaughters and his Garmin-Sharp team and others for helping them replaced their stolen kit.
Without replacements quickly, the documentary project was in real danger.
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Titled ‘Rough Rider’ is to examine Kimmage’s life and will explore the last 18 months of his career in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal, his being sued by Pat McQuaid and the UCI and a counter legal action.
"We had parked the two camper vans we had travelled in and went down to the start. But when the crew returned to the camper after the stage had started they noticed something wasn't right," Kimmage said.
"One of them opened the door and he noticed a copy of my book on the floor and thought, 'God, that's odd'.”
"He started looking around and he saw his rucksack was on the floor and he realised pretty quickly that the van had been burgled.”
"They took three Macs and an SLR camera. A computer bag with other bits and pieces in it was also taken but we haven't lost any footage. They literally came in, looked around for what was valuable, grabbed it and cleared off."
"To say it's disappointing is an understatement.
"It is a big setback, but it could be worse. Hopefully we get to Nice and we can sort something out from there,” he added.
They crew hope to recoup the cost of the stolen equipment through insurance but were dependent on the Macbooks to continue filming.
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Rough Rider Promo from Wildfire Films on Vimeo.
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