Paul Kimmage (born 7 May 1962 in
Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish sports journalist and former amateur and professional
road bicycle racer
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common ...
, who was road race champion of Ireland in 1981, and competed in the
1984 Olympic Games The 1984 Olympics may refer to:
*The 1984 Winter Olympics, which were held in Sarajevo, Yugoslavia
*The 1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an intern ...
. He wrote for ''
The Sunday Times'' newspaper and others, and published a number of books.
Kimmage was born into a cycling family. His father, Christy, cycled with the
Dublin Wheelers
Dublin Wheelers is a cycling club operating from the northside of Dublin, Ireland since 1933. As of 2022, it is based in Santry.
History
The club was established in 1933 by a group of six friends on a weekend away cycling in Rostrevor, County ...
, and his brothers Raphael and
Kevin were also active. At schoolboy level (under 16) he and his brothers rode with the Orwell Wheelers, at the same time as Stephen Roche.
Cycling career
Amateur career
Kimmage had a prominent career as an amateur, notably his 6th place at the amateur world road race championship. His brothers also enjoyed the spotlight: Raphael finished second in the 1984
Ras Tailteann, while Kevin won the race in 1991.
Kimmage replicated his reputation as a successful amateur in Ireland, for the French
ACBB
Athletic Club de Boulogne-Billancourt or A.C.B.B. is a French sports club based in the suburbs of Paris in the commune of Boulogne-Billancourt. The club offers a variety of sports, but is primarily known for cycling, rugby union, judo, figure sk ...
team and the Belgian
CC Wasquehal amateur team. He also represented his country at the
1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and also known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the secon ...
in
Los Angeles, California, in the team time trials, where the team placed 16th of 26.
Notable performances as an amateur included 5 July 1981 where he became the national road race champion ahead of the old but still competitive
Paddy Flanagan. He was sixth in the 1985 amateur world road championship. He also finished ninth in a professional race, the
Bordeaux–Paris, behind Belgian
René Martens, in 1985.
Professional career, 1986-1989
In 1986 Kimmage joined the RMO team under
Bernard Thévenet. During his time in the peloton he wrote pieces in Irish newspapers interested in the sport because of the success of countrymen
Stephen Roche and
Sean Kelly.
His career includes ninth on stage 7 of the
1986 Tour de France
The 1986 Tour de France was a cycling race held in France, from 4 July to 27 July. It was the 73rd running of the Tour de France. Greg LeMond of won the race, ahead of his teammate Bernard Hinault. It was the first ever victory for a rider outs ...
before completing the Tour in 131st place (his only finish in three participations of the Tour). He was in the Irish team with
Stephen Roche,
Sean Kelly and
Martin Earley that prepared together and competed at the
UCI Road World Championships in 1987 that ended with a win by
Stephen Roche. Several weeks later during the 1987
Nissan Classic
The Tour of Ireland (Irish: Turas na hÉireann, known from 1985 to 1992 as the Nissan Classic) was a bicycle stage race held in August, which ran for 35 editions over a 56-year period. Irish rider Seán Kelly recorded the most wins, four.
Th ...
in which Kimmage finished eighth, Kelly thanked Roche, Earley and Kimmage for closing the gap to a break and ensuring his
yellow jersey.
Kimmage left RMO at the end of 1988 and rode for half a season for the Fagor-MBK team of
Stephen Roche and
Eddy Schepers
Eddy Schepers (born 12 December 1955) is a Belgian former professional cyclist. He was a professional cyclist from 1978 to 1990 where he rode for many teams including C&A, Carrera and . He started out in the C&A cycling team of Belgian Eddy Me ...
with
directeur sportif Patrick Valcke Patrick may refer to:
* Patrick (given name), list of people and fictional characters with this name
* Patrick (surname), list of people with this name
People
* Saint Patrick (c. 385–c. 461), Christian saint
*Gilla Pátraic (died 1084), Patrick ...
. He supported Roche in the
1989 Giro d'Italia
The 1989 Giro d'Italia was the 72nd edition of the race. It started off in Taormina on 21 May with a flat stage that ended in Catania. The race concluded in Florence with a individual time trial on 11 June. Twenty-two teams entered the race ...
which was won by
Laurent Fignon with
Roche finishing ninth. Kimmage was planning on ending his professional cycling career at the end of the 1989 Nissan Classic which ended each year on
O'Connell Street in Dublin but after Roche had to withdraw from the
1989 Tour de France
The 1989 Tour de France was the 76th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The race consisted of 21 stages and a prologue, over . It started on 1 July 1989 in Luxembourg before taking an anti-clockwise route through France ...
, Kimmage withdrew and subsequently gave up as a professional.
Controversy
Kimmage always struggled with injury and he retired with no wins, blaming systemic doping in the peloton. In his book ''
Rough Ride'' he talks of taking amphetamines in a
post-season exhibition race, something that was common practice at that time in cycling; criterium results were often staged, with a win being guaranteed for the biggest name or local hero.
Journalism and publishing
Books
In May 1990, Kimmage published ''
Rough Ride'', detailing his experiences as a ''
domestique'' which included references to drug use, including his own. Kimmage admitted to using
amphetamines to ride
non-controlled criteriums on a few occasions, and
caffeine suppositories
A suppository is a dosage form used to deliver medications by insertion into a body orifice where it dissolves or melts to exert local or systemic effects. There are three types of suppositories, each to insert into a different sections: rectal su ...
, but says he stayed away from more powerful and dangerous drugs that other cyclists were using.
Kimmage wrote a biography of
Matt Hampson entitled ''Engage: The Fall and Rise of Matt Hampson''. It was published in August 2011. It won the 2012
British Sports Book Award
The Sports Book Awards (previously National Sporting Club Book Awards then Telegraph Sports Book Awards) is a British literary award for sports writing. It was first awarded in 2003 as part of the National Sporting Club. Awards are presented in m ...
in the Autobiography/Biography category, and went on to win the overall best book award in all categories. It was shortlisted for the 2011
William Hill Sports Book of the Year, despite not being longlisted. It was however awarded the 2011
William Hill Irish Sports Book of the Year.
Press
Kimmage had been a sports journalist with the ''
Sunday Independent'' in Ireland. He left for ''The Sunday Times'' soon after an incident in 2002, when the newspaper misrepresented an article he had written about
Roy Keane
Roy Maurice Keane (born 10 August 1971) is an Irish football pundit, coach and former professional player. He is the joint most successful Irish footballer of all time, having won 19 major trophies in his club career, 17 of which came during ...
in the wake of the
Saipan saga involving Keane. The editors had taken a quote from Keane out of context to run a headline that implied Keane was planning to leave his wife.
Kimmage has been a long-time friend of
David Walsh, author of the controversial doping-in-cycling book
L.A. Confidentiel
''L.A. Confidentiel: Les secrets de Lance Armstrong'' (''L.A. Confidential: Lance Armstrong's Secrets'') is a book by sports journalist Pierre Ballester and ''The Sunday Times'' sports correspondent David Walsh. The book contains circumstantial ...
.
In 2012 Kimmage was laid off from ''The Sunday Times''. He has claimed that the loss of his job is related to his reporting on doping in cycling. Because many of his doping and cycling stories were rejected by the paper's lawyers, he was unable to get as many published articles as he otherwise would have, and this led to his losing his job.
[The Last Word, with Matt Cooper]
, 22 October 2012, interview with Paul Kimmage on Today FM (Radio Ireland Limited T/A Today FM, Dublin), retr 2012 10 22
Kimmage has also described his difficulty with being dispassionate on the issue. He told Today FM "sometimes I let myself down" while covering the topic, relating his passion to his own experience in the sport and the knowledge that other riders have died from doping.
[
In 2012 Kimmage was named among the top 10 most influential sportswriters in Britain by the trade publication, UK Press Gazette.][In 2012 Samuel was named top in a UK Press Gazette poll of Britain's best sports journalists.]
Documentary
In July 2014, a documentary film called ''Rough Rider
The Rough Riders was a nickname given to the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, one of three such regiments raised in 1898 for the Spanish–American War and the only one to see combat. The United States Army was small, understaffed, and diso ...
'' was shown. The documentary was filmed over two years and was set against the fall of Lance Armstrong for doping offences and followed Kimmage as a journalist during the 2013 Tour de France
The 2013 Tour de France was the 100th edition of the Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. It started on the island of Corsica on 30 June and finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris on 21 July. The Tour consisted of twenty-one stage ...
where he questions what is being done to remove the doping culture in professional cycling.
Radio
Kimmage is a panelist on the Newstalk 106 Sunday Sports radio show and a regular contributor to The Last Word on Today FM.
Doping-related controversies
Lance Armstrong
Kimmage has a history of confrontations with former professional cyclist Lance Armstrong. Kimmage has invoked the ire of Armstrong over claims that most of Armstrong's early US Postal cycling team were doped, claiming that riders like George Hincapie had taken performance-enhancing drugs.
This conflict received widespread coverage before the 2009 Tour of California
The 2009 Amgen Tour of California was the 4th running of an annual cycling race contained within the state of California. The event was staged February 14–22 and began with a prologue in the state capital of Sacramento. The event was held as par ...
, when Kimmage asked Armstrong a question regarding dopers. Upon learning the identity of Kimmage, who had earlier referred to Armstrong as the "cancer" of cycling, Armstrong responded aggressively to the question, with the heated exchange being uploaded to popular video sharing sites.
In June 2012, the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) charged Armstrong with having used illicit performance-enhancing drugs, and in August they announced a lifetime ban from competition as well as the stripping of all titles since August 1998. On 22 October 2012, the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI), the sport's governing body, endorsed USADA's verdict and confirmed both the lifetime ban and the stripping of titles. These included the Tour de France titles for the years 1999 to 2005.
Floyd Landis interview
In January 2011, nyvelocity.com published the full transcript of a 7-hour interview Paul Kimmage conducted with former professional cyclist Floyd Landis
Floyd Landis (born October 14, 1975) is an American former professional road racing cyclist. He finished first at the 2006 Tour de France, and would have been the third non-European winner in the event's history, but was disqualified after test ...
a few days before Thanksgiving of 2010. In the interview, Landis admitted to being involved in doping activities during his time with the US Postal team, where he was often referred to as Lance Armstrong's "second in command".
UCI defamation suit and counter-suit
In 2012 Union Cycliste Internationale president Pat McQuaid and former president Hein Verbruggen, as well as UCI itself, sued Kimmage in Switzerland for defamation
Defamation is the act of communicating to a third party false statements about a person, place or thing that results in damage to its reputation. It can be spoken (slander) or written (libel). It constitutes a tort or a crime. The legal defini ...
. Press attributed this to articles Kimmage had written for ''The Sunday Times'' and '' L'Equipe'' which discussed doping and UCI. Greg LeMond,[Sport Saturday Greg LeMond interview]
, newstalk.ie, 2012 October 6, retr 2012 10 13 Tyler Hamilton, David Walsh, and others voiced their support for Kimmage and a legal defence fund was set up to assist him. The lawsuit was later dropped, but Kimmage had received money from the public to prepare a defence, so he decided to sue the UCI himself in a criminal court. He stated that he was doing it for the whistleblowers who were defamed by the UCI. UCI withdrew its suit fully, and McQuaid allowed his to rest, but Verbruggen pursued his, and secured a win, with Kimmage required to publish apologies, not repeat certain allegations, and pay 12000 euro compensation. The complaint he filed was dismissed by Swiss authorities.
Major results
;1981
: 1st Road race, National Amateur Road Championships
;1983
: 2nd Manx International
Rally Isle of Man (previously the ''Manx International Rally'' and formerly the ''Manx Trophy Rally'') is a car rally competition held in the Isle of Man. It was first held in 1963, and later became a well-known event in the British Open Rall ...
;1984
: 1st Road race, National Amateur Road Championships
;1985
: 6th Road race, UCI Road World Amateur Championships
: 9th Bordeaux–Paris
;1986
: 2nd Tom Sheehan Memorial
;1987
: 8th Overall Nissan Classic
The Tour of Ireland (Irish: Turas na hÉireann, known from 1985 to 1992 as the Nissan Classic) was a bicycle stage race held in August, which ran for 35 editions over a 56-year period. Irish rider Seán Kelly recorded the most wins, four.
Th ...
References
External links
Paul Kimmage interview, Dec. 2012
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kimmage, Paul
Irish sports journalists
Cycling journalists
The Sunday Times people
Doping cases in cycling
Irish male cyclists
Sportspeople from Dublin (city)
Cyclists at the 1984 Summer Olympics
Olympic cyclists of Ireland
1962 births
Living people
People from Artane, Dublin
Cycling writers