Dear Mrs Williams

Thank you for putting the environment of drinking and abuse of the NZ cycling team under the microscope and into the front pages of the NZ Herald. According to you, "It's a very destructive culture and very unsafe for all the girls who go away with the NZ cycling team".

Riiiiiiiiiight. Let's back up the truck. What actually happened is the source of speculation (more about that later) but I feel this off the Stuff website is as close to the truth as anything:

"Sources said the two men urinated against a fence before being moved on by a security guard.
They then decided to go swimming in a pond. They stripped down to their underwear and picked up the woman and threw her into the pond with them. She screamed loudly and became irritated because she was wearing new shoes, which were ruined in the water. The security guard took details and filed a report, which was forwarded to police."

Let's back the truck up further. In the same report there is any interesting quote: "Another source close to the team said the three were probably so drunk they could hardly remember what happened." The Herald website has an update after Liz Williams spoke on Radio Live this morning, which states: "When asked how drunk she, Gudsell and Ryan were, Williams said she didn't know."

I think I'll be safe from defamation by stating on the balance of probabilities, Liz Williams (a) made a conscious and willing decision to go into town with two male members of the cycling team, and (b) it is possible she was drinking something stronger than lemonade.

So Mrs Williams, if it is "very unsafe" for the girls of the NZ cycling team, perhaps you should be asking your daughter why the hell she decided to go out on the lash with a couple of the lads rather than publicly bashing the "destructive culture" of the NZ cycling team?

The second point is how badly this has been handled in the media, firstly by the NZOC and now by Cycling NZ. Brendan Telfer had a go at Cycling NZ's President on Radio Sport this morning questioning why they can't just come out and say what happened and put an end to all the speculation. He made the reasonable point that the public have some right to know as these are by and large taxpayer-funded athletes.

I'm reminded of Norm Hewitt's antics some years ago - no, not on Dancing with the Stars - when he got pissed in Queenstown and smashed a plate glass window of a house in the middle of the night, much to the alarm of the residents. The NZRU got Hewitt to face up to the media, put all the details out in public and had Stormin' Norman make a public apology while blubbering like a baby.

And it did some good, too. Norm cleaned up his act, the "punishment" of a bit of public humiliation is more than anything the counselling the cyclists have to undergo will ever do, and the issue was dead and buried a few days after it happened. In this case, we have the incident being re-lived in the media 6 weeks after it happened because Cycling NZ refuse to end speculation about what actually happened. Their call, but I feel they are not going about burying this the right way.