Paul Kimmage: "I may be an asshole but I'm a consistent asshole". He doesn't spare the horses when tackling David Walsh on the radio and in print.
Paul Kimmage has robustly questioned David Walsh’s approach to covering Team Sky and the events of the past couple of weeks relating to TUEs availed of by its riders.
Writing in The Sunday Independent and also being interviewed on Newstalk’s ‘Off The Ball’, Kimmage said he believes Walsh’s judgement has been clouded.
He believed this was as a result of the celebrity and plaudits Walsh had received since being credited with bringing down Lance Armstrong.
Kimmage also tackles Walsh's coverage in his Sunday Independent column, which you can read by following this link. But it is the radio interview that is angriest and even emotional at times.
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When Newstalk presenter Joe Molloy put it to Kimmage that his story was all about Walsh in a week when he didn’t even have to mention his former friend at all, Kimmage said Walsh was relevant because the controversy was all about transparency.
He said even when BBC broadcaster Andrew Marr interviewed Wiggins about the now contentious TUEs used to avail of injections; Marr put Walsh’s name to Wiggins as an influential journalist who has previously covered Team Sky in favourable terms.
Kimmage questioned why Walsh had chosen to cover Team Sky in the way he has.
And he was particularly critical of Walsh taking up an offer to spend time with the team and the way he had written about his visits to the squad.
“What I find interesting about it is that David accepted an invitation from Team Sky, ultimately to prove that they had nothing to hide, that they were totally transparent,” Kimmage told Molloy in a very passionate and at times emotional interview.
“So even Andrew Marr now is using David Walsh as someone who has been vocal in his praise, and certain in his belief in Team Sky, and is now expressing doubts.
“And my point would be would be that David Walsh had these doubts from day one, and for whatever reason, I would suspect it is celebrity, and the effect of not having a friend to say 'listen you need to take your head of your ass here and actually look at what's happening', that’s affected his judgement.”
Kimmage said while Walsh has prospered since the fall of Armstrong, he said his fellow Irish journalist came close to being let go by The Sunday Times, just as Kimmage himself was.
“History is written by the winners. So if you turn back the clock to Bradley Wiggins's Tour de France win, which is essentially what this story is about; it's Bradley Wiggins winning that Tour and getting this TUE at a time when he was in superb form and won the Tour de France.
“If you look at that Tour de France in 2012; and where we were at that time... I was unemployed, I had been unemployed for seven months, I had no work, I hadn't got a commission in those seven months.
“And I was sitting in Portugal with David, who wasn't on the race. Now, you have to ask yourself that, think about that....
"Between us I think we covered every Tour back to... I'm tempted to say 1986, because I was riding it and he was reporting on it but there wouldn't have been too many that either of us missed.
“So you've got the chief sports writer of the Sunday Times, you've got Bradley Wiggins - the first Briton in history to win the race - and the chief sports writer of the Sunday Times is not on the race, OK?
“My belief as to why that happened was; there were legitimate questions that needed to be asked of Wiggins after that performance, the same questions that David had asked of Lance Armstrong and everybody else.
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“There was a difference. The difference was that Lance Armstrong was American. We had both suffered as a result of trying to expose Lance Armstrong at the paper, and at that time, in July 2012, Lance Armstrong was still a hero, he had not been brought down.
“I was shafted, David was looking at me getting shafted, all these issues were coming up now with a British rider, and I think Dave looked at me and thought 'maybe I should sit this one out, it may be easier to sit this one out'.
“At that time when we were beaten dockets at the apartment in Portugal, as I say, Lance is still the hero. So what happens then? Two months later, Lance is blown.
“Who is the man who brought Lance Armstrong down? David Walsh. Who's the guy they are thinking of sacking two months ago? David Walsh. Oh no they can't sack him now; he is the hero.
“And now, suddenly, he's being paraded as the champion of journalism. Our man, you know?
“Now check the archives, about that famous press conference that I had against Armstrong in LA in 09, I couldn't write a word about that.
“We weren't allowed write this guy's name in The Sunday Times for years, and I kept taking that fight to them (The Sunday Times).
"And I went to two Tour de Frances; I had to come home because they wouldn’t actually allow me to publish the pieces, because it was Lance, because we were involved in the legal fight with him. So that was the context of this in 2012.
“But then suddenly, when Lance is blown, it's hey, ‘we’re the people that brought you this guy’. Which was fair to a degree.
“They (The Sunday Times) weren't saying 'when he put it up to us, we backed down and we weren't prepared to keep doing it'. They weren't saying that. Suddenly, David is the hero. He will probably argue that point.”
Kimmage said his problems with Walsh began at the time Armstrong’s downfall was completed and Team Sky invited Walsh to stay with the team for periods.
“So Lance gets blown in October, [Dave] Brailsford offers him an invitation [to Team Sky] in November. In January he goes and pays his first visit to Sky.
“He writes a piece in The Sunday Times; 'No Hiding Place'... in February one month after his first visit to the team, less even, a couple of weeks: 'No Hiding Place: The battle for the credibility of cycling brings an extraordinary offer from the head of Team Sky Dave Brailsford'.
Kimmage said the offer was not extraordinary because he himself had been made the same offer with Team Sky while still writing for The Sunday Times.
He said that offer was reneged on but that Walsh never pointed this out in his coverage; something Kimmage says Walsh should have done in the interests of covering Team Sky objectively and being transparent about the background to offer of access to the team.
Kimmage added that rather than visit the team a number of times over a period of months, perhaps from January of 2013 up until July of that year, when Froome won the Tour for Team Sky, Walsh began immediately writing about his visits.
And the impression immediately given was that Team Sky, and Bradley Wiggins in particular, were clean and vehemently anti doping; something Kimmage said was ridiculous to suggest on the basis of a first visit to the team.
“It’s like, from the get go, David Walsh almost has his mind made up from the very first time he goes into the team ‘these guys are great’,” said Kimmage adding he fell out with Walsh not long after when they had a screaming match down the phone.
“My big problem with David Walsh is this. Chris Froome won the 2013 Tour de France, OK. On the eve of the race he was interviewed by French TV; I’m sitting there watching this. And he comes on and it’s not like ‘I believe in Chris Froome’.
“It’s his absolute certainty, certainty that Froome and this team are clean. Now one thing you cannot have with any of this, is certainty.”
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