The Arzouian Cup

We have our winners! I think?

Even though it is Saturday morning and the races were held yesterday no Official results are posted anywhere yet. The PDF download on www.roadnationals.com did not work at 9AM Montreal time.

Is everybody on holidays in Kamloops. Nothing like timely results to ensure good media coverage. Many newspapers do not pulbish on Sunday, You missed Satruday and by Monday they will not run news that is thre days old.

Is this Kim Sebrango's idea of good communications? You won't get any sponsors that way, baby.

Good job with getting those results out to the rest of the country (not!).

Anyway, the first winners of first annual Arzouian Cup are (unofficially) Charles Dionne and Mandy Poitras. Congratulations to our new National Criterium Champions! Their teams were not listed so we cannot know if they rode for their province or their trade team. So I won't mention either here. This is another bad omission. You would think Rob Jones of Canadian Cyclist would know better.

Charles Dionne is from Quebec though and maybe somebody here would have like to hear he was Canadian National Criterium Champion.

(Note: the lack of results is probably due to poor scheduling by race organizers in Kamloops, the City of Kamloops and the Canadian Cycling Association. The races started at 5PM Pacific Time. No doubt because it was impossible to close 900 metres of street in busy downtown Kamloops on a Friday afternoon in July. Instead of running the most important race first, the Elite Men, at 5PM Pacific Time, which would have given them time to get those results out in the east where most people live, they ran the Juniors and then Masters (who should not even be racing on this weekend, they should have their own championships). The Elite Men went only at 8:45PM Pacific Time! Great media relations thinking there. If Kamloops is thinking it is raising its national profile by refusing to close 900m of streets at noon, they are wrong. It is a national championship, think nationally. It is pretty simple. Kamloops, the CCA and race organizers blew all national sports coverage by doing that. Amateurs.)

Professionals, take back your sport before they kill it!

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[font='Bookman Old Style']* Kim is Kim Sebrango, the new Director of Marketing Operations at the Canadian Cycling Association who has absolutely no cycling experience. she would have had no input in this as she just started. Instead CCA Chief Operating Officer, Steve Lacelle, would have been overseeing this, only he has no cycling experience at all either unless you count the last four months of on the job training. This would have been his first national road cycling championships. Our sport suffers while these newbies learn.[/font]

[font='Bookman Old Style']CCA President Bill Kinash held one national calibre road race in Saskatchewan in 20 years, so he would not have been much help.[/font]

[font='Bookman Old Style']And there you have your Three Blind Mice of Canadian cycling.[/font]

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[font='Bookman Old Style']This newsletter goes out regularly to about 450 people. To get on the list just email me at [email hidden][/font]

PS Somebody send me photos of the winners in their new Official Jerseys.

You know, somebody should give me one of those jersyes, seeing how hard and long I worked to re-instate the Crit Championships.

They screwed up my Arzouian Cup!!!

Here is today's newsletter. For this special Nationals Edition I added the City of Kamloops:

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----- Original Message ----- From: Ed Arzouian
To: [email hidden] ; [email hidden] ; taylorbicyclecafe.com ; [email hidden] ; [email hidden] ; [email hidden]
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2005 11:45 AM
Subject: Amateur night in Kamloops



[font=Bookman Old Style]Poitras, Dionne Win ..... (something?)
by pedalmag.com "July 8, 2005 - Last night Mandy Poitras (Symmetrics) and Charles Dionne (Quebec) took wins in the very short Criterium championships. The women raced 20km and the men 36km."

A 36-km. National Criterium Championship???? WTF

It was supposed to be a 45-lap race for Elite Women and a 55-lap race for Elite Men on .9km. course. So that should have been 40.5 and 49.5 kilometres, respectively, still too short, but whatever. No wonder nobody wanted to report on the race earlier, it was such a mess.

So somebody screwed up big-time.

Let me guess, everything ran so late that it got too dark to race?

Genius!

All this just proves my points. First, the Master categories are clogging the Nationals race program with needless events. They should have their own championship somewhere else at some other time.

Secondly, it was stupid to start the events so late in the day. Kamloops should have closed the streets of its boring little town at noon and held the races midday.

Either do it right or don't do it at all.

Amateurs.

Speaking of which, here is what the www.roadnationals.com web site says about results, "Sorry, we are having difficulty uploading to the website right now. Results will be posted as soon as the website is functioning properly again." Typical.

Our sport is run by amateurs who do all they can to exclude people with experience.

We end up with [censored].

A 20-km championship race for Elite women, 36-kms for men. Jokes.

Professionals take back your sport.

What is it going to take? How much more proof do you need????

Good job to the Canadian Cycling Association President Bill Kinash and the Chief Operating Officer, Steve Lacelle. Nationals are the only events the CCA owns and they cannot even get those right. Steve, didn't you work in IT before working at the YMCA and then coming to cycling? Can't you get a web site to work? Maybe if you were doing business with the people that designed the site in 2003 (me and Sphyr Communications, instead of ripping off their ideas) your site would work?

Incompetence as far as the eye can see. CCA President Bill Kinash is an embarassment to the sport.

Professionals take back your sport before there is nothing left.

Ed Arzouian,
St. Anicet, QC


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