There are a few people within cycling who will be enjoying - even relishing - the plight of the cash-strapped Cannondale-Drapac team, now fighting against the clock to raise enough money to continue at WorldTour level into 2018.
That's not because they want to see riders and staff out of work, or because of any resentment at the team’s recent resurgence, but because of the profile and positioning of the team’s guiding light, Jonathan Vaughters.
For some, things would be a lot simpler, more straightforward, and less divisive if Vaughters and his team were out of the picture. That’s not because of his commercial acumen, which for most of the time is hidden behind beard, glasses and fishing jokes, but more because of who he is and what he represents - an inconvenient truth.
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If you want to find reasons to kick Vaughters, you don’t have to look very far. Plenty find him too holier-than-thou, and his long-standing repentant doper schtick unconvincing. His past still hangs over him, and has proven to be an easy stick to beat him with.
His eye-opening affidavit to USADA during the Lance Armstrong investigation, revealing details of his own doping and that of others within the US Postal team, was pivotal to the debunking of Armstrong. His subsequent repositioning as an anti-doping lobbyist, who stuck by those who told the truth, was too much for some to take.
To his critics, Vaughters is not credible and neither are some - past and present - within his team. I am not the only journalist to have been taken aside by those working for rival teams to have my ear bent about his supposed hypocrisy. To them, he remains the ex-con, a rider who played with ‘hot sauce’, conveniently remodelling himself as a paragon of propriety. He flip-flops too easily and is a poor judge, saying one thing but doing another, sticking by riders like Tom Danielson, only to then conveniently renege on his ethical promises.
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