Friday, February 01, 2008

What he was thinking

A commenter on Rant's article about Steve Johnson's statements yesterday sent them to Mr. Johnson,
and got this reply:

Thank you for your note.

The special consideration in this situation is that, as a condition of entry into the Amgen Tour of California (an invitational, non-protected event under UCI regulations), the organizer has required all teams to abide by a “Terms of Entry Agreement” under which the teams agree (among other things) not to start riders with open doping investigations as determined by the relevant anti-doping agencies.

The key point here is that we are talking about professional riders who are paid to perform under the terms of an employment contract. Because of the contractual nature of the relationship between a professional rider and his or her team, it has long been an accepted UCI practice to notify the director of a UCI registered team once a doping investigation has started against a rider registered to that team. The only difference in this case is an additional “certification” (as agreed to by the teams) to the AToC organizer that the team rosters do not include any riders currently participating in an active doping investigation. Obviously, this program is predicated on the “Terms of Entry Agreement” and will only affect those teams that have agreed to abide by its terms.

All the best,

Steve Johnson

4 comments:

Eightzero said...

Ummm....Is Mr. Johnson suggesting the agreement the riders sign with their team contains their consent to have the USADA and USOC release information about them?

I sure would like to read a pro cycling contract. Can anyone post one? I'd like to know thatit is real, but doesn't need to identify the team or rider.

Larry said...

8-0 -

I posted a reply to Mr. Johnson over at RYHO. We are dealing here with a contract between the TofC organizers and the various TofC teams. If a third party such as USA Cycling has confidential information that a team is breaching its contract with the TofC organizers, the existence of this breach of contract does not itself give USA Cycling the right to disclose the information in violation of the confidentiality obligations.

In the absence of additional relevant information, such as valid and effective waivers of the various confidentiality rights, this is all you need to know.

Eightzero said...

larry - I'm a little confused. Aren't the confidentiality provisions that protect pro cyclists derived from the contract (the license) pro cyclists enter into with USAC (I meant USAC in my first post)? If so, would it be a reasonable construction to say that the athlete can give consent by any reasonable means, such as signing a contract with such a provision ("...I consent to release of my information by USAC...") in a subsequent agreement with their pro team?

Or am I on dope?

Cycling Fan said...

eightzero,

Exactly Larry's point. The only consideration that removes USAC and Mr. Johnson's liability is if EACH athlete signed an individual waiver of confidentiality rights. This would be unusual specific language in a contract. I think that Mr. Johnson is suggesting an implied consent by the athlete based on the teams' contract and agreemnet with ToC.

Bill

BTW, the response posted at RYHO from Mr. Johnson was addressed to me.