Tour of Ireland canned

iainf72

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-s ... 02046.html?

Pity. Races that go away for a year rarely come back

dave_1

well, sponsors pulling out...would love to know if it's only the recession or their perception of the sport as .

Kléber

Bit of both Dave. Right in Pat's back yard too, he had better realise that that when someone asks him to pull his foot of his mouth, it's not so he can shoot himself in the foot.

dave_1

Kléber wrote:

Bit of both Dave. Right in Pat's back yard too, he had better realise that that when someone asks him to pull his foot of his mouth, it's not so he can shoot himself in the foot.

it must be near impossible for the boardroom level guys/women who release the sponsorship money to miss huge headlines about Valverde, Di Luca, Landis

Kléber

Yes, but some sponsors are approaching team managers to "do it right", the likes of Slipstream Sports and High Road have got some big name sponsors.

Let's not forget Ireland is in the middle of a deep austerity drive, budgets and even wages are being cut everywhere. A bike race isn't essential spending.

Rodrego Hernandez

It's organised by the mcquaid mafia so I guess the backhanders have dried up?

blazing_saddles

I thought this race was on McQuaid's fast track list, like the 4th GT?

Maybe chopping two days off the race didn't help.
Why did they do that, again?

No_Ta_Doctor

Blazing Saddles wrote:

I thought this race was on McQuaid's fast track list, like the 4th GT?

Maybe chopping two days off the race didn't help.
Why did they do that, again?

According to the article above, they did that because they couldn't get enough sponsorship. That would point to this years event being cancelled because the global economic situation is still crap, rather than sponsors pulling out because of "perceptions" of cycling.

intothe12

this race is run by mcquaids brother or son i think...
and his old business partner alan rushton.
clearly the irish tourism board were not prepared to cough up the cash.

pedro118118

I enjoyed it last year.
Seems Armstrong and Cav didn't though!

emadden

pedro118118 wrote:

I enjoyed it last year.
Seems Armstrong and Cav didn't though!

Lance certaintly enjoyed the huge appearance fee, which was rumoured to be the reason for the cut from 5 to 3 days. And then the pr*** had the gall to pull out at the bottom of St Patricks Hill when 10s of thousands turned up in horrific weather to see him.

Gazzetta67

Why Does'nt Pat "Hank" McQuaid get his new pal big tex armstrong to bail him out ?

Remember our Pat will take anyone's money.

mididoctors

the economy in Ireland has tanked pretty bad

Snorebens

Kléber wrote:

Yes, but some sponsors are approaching team managers to "do it right", the likes of Slipstream Sports and High Road have got some big name sponsors.

Let's not forget Ireland is in the middle of a deep austerity drive, budgets and even wages are being cut everywhere. A bike race isn't essential spending.

Funnily enough, I wonder if the Tour of Britain may feel the squeeze too - we're about to have our own austerity budget in 22 days and, as others have pointed out at length, the reason why the ToB visits certain parts of the country is largely down to local councils logistically, backed by cash from the Regional Development Agencies - which are quangos squarely in Osbourne's firing line. Where Ireland goes, Britain follows next year imo.

andy_wrx

Weren't the RDA's which are to be axed based in the South East, the argument being that that's a developed area anyway and so they're a waste of money whereas the RDA's in the 'post-industrial' bits of the UK shouldn't see such cuts/abolition ?