'Andy, what have you done?': my personal opinion about the case du jour

Andy, what have you done? Did you really stay out until 5 am on the eve of a pretty hard Vuelta stage? Were you really drunk yesterday morning? Or did you just have a single drink after dinner?
These are some of the questions that Fangirl would like to ask Andy Schleck right now.
In fact, as everyone in Cycledom knows, yesterday Andy Schleck and Stuart O'Grady were kicked out from la Vuelta because they broke the internal rules of team Saxo Bank. In other words, they drank after dinner.
The problem is: Andy and Stuart said that they had just 1 drink after dinner, but they didn't mention at what time they came back to the hotel.
Bjarne Riis instead said that Andy and Stuey came back at the team's hotel at 5 am, after a night spent in a bar, but didn't say whether they were drunk or not. He simply said that he didn't care about how many beers Stuey and Andy had during the night, because '1 beer or 10 beers, it doesn't make any difference. It was 5 am'.
Then, obviously, there are the journalists. The journalists who, right now, are divided in two teams. Some wrote headlines like 'Andy Schleck ejected from la Vuelta just because he had a drink after dinner' and made the reader understand that, according to them, Riis was too harsh with the Luxembourgian. Others, instead, came up with sensational headlines like 'Schleck ejected from la Vuelta: he came back at his hotel, drunk, at 5am'. This, in particular, was the headline of La Gazzetta dello Sport.
I've already mentioned that, imo, someone who works for La Gazzetta doesn't like the Schlecks very much. Today, I think I had the official confirm of my suspect. "Andy Schleck, also known as 'the little brother', 'the angel-faced rider', the 'good' that was defeated by the 'bad' Contador during this year Tour... was ejected from la Vuelta after that he came back at his hotel, drunk, at 5 am yesterday morning (...) Together with him there was O'Grady, who already had an experience like that during the 2006 Vuelta, the night before of the last stage. On that occasion O'Grady spent the night in a disco, but then rode the day's stage in a spectacular way". At a certain point even Cancellara was mentioned in the article, since it seems that he had been out drinking with Schleck and O'Grady, too.

In this big information chaos, we obviously can't know who's telling the truth and who isn't.
Or, perhaps, both Andy and Riis are telling the truth. I mean, perhaps Andy really had just one drink after dinner and he really came back at 5 am in the morning. Who knows? Perhaps Andy went out and ordered a beer in a little bar. The beer eventually arrived, but it was very disgusting. Andy's a well-educated boy, so he probably thought it was unpolite to leave a full glass of beer on the bar table, without drinking it. So, he decided to finish that damned beer up. Too bad that, when he finally finished it, it was 5 am and his team ds was waiting for him and Stuey in the hall of the hotel. Perhaps, that's what happened.

Anyway. More seriously, I think that the other evening Andy made a mistake. In other words, he was imprudent and unwise.

I mean: you're a rider who's going to change team next year and you're 'stealing' many riders from your (almost) former team. Imo, in a situation like that, you should be prudent and know that your ds won't lose any occasion to create damages to your image. After all, that's part of the game too.

In such a delicate situation, me thinks that going out for a drink with just one teammate (who is also going to join you at your new team) on the eve of a pretty hard stage of a Grand Tour, without telling your ds about it, when you already have a heavy delay in the GC, well, me thinks that doing all these things in a certain situation isn't wise at all.

If then Andy really came back at 5 am, well, I think that then we can't say that he was just unwise and imprudent. If he really did so, he also lacked of professionality and of respect towards the team's sponsor, towards the race, towards his Spanish supporters and, more important, towards his teammates. That's my opinion.

As far as Riis is concerned, then, just try to put yourself in his shoes. You are a ds, your best riders are leaving your team and so are some of your 'historic' riders. The Vuelta is the last GT that you're facing with the boys that have been your best athletes for the last years. One of these boys, Andy, loses 37 minutes in one week time and this creates bad publicity to your sponsor. Then, on the eve of a pretty hard stage, Andy and another rider go out drinking after dinner, although they know it is prohibited.

Personally, I would have been a little fed up too, no matter when they actually came back to the hotel. The rules are rules. If then they came back at a decent time, I could have closed an eye. But if they really came back at 5 am, well, I think I would have sent them away from the race as well.

That was a very tricky move, I agree, but Riis had the right to do so. After all, if Andy hadn't broken that rule, Riis wouldn't have the chance of sending him out of the race. So, in the end, I think that the only ones to blame for what happened are Andy and Stuart.

But still, there is one thing I want to say: Andy is 25. Everyone makes mistakes, the problem is that when that 'everyone' is a famous person, well, the mistakes seem bigger and get a lot more of attention. So I think that Andy should reflect about what he's done, talk a lot with Frank ( he's the one who's going to suffer more for Andy's exclusion from the Vuelta) and try to focus on the last races of the season. Then, in less than two months, he'll be able to change team and forget about Riis and this story.

In the meanwhile, I hope he can have a bit of peace and relax in Luxembourg and support his brother Frank as much as he can- the boy needs all our support now.