So, I can’t figure out if UCI President Pat McQuaid is being weirdly racist, or just ignorantly throwing around a politically-loaded word… Either way, saying Western European culture is like the “mafia” when it comes to dealing with cycling’s doping problems seems to me to be adding fuel to a fire that has no trouble burning already.

“There is a clash going on at the moment between two cultures, the Anglo-Saxon and what I might call the mafia Western European culture,” the Irishman told Dutch television on Friday.

“The Western European Culture is a culture that has to some extent - I won’t say condones doping and cheating practices - but because of their culture in life, because of the way they deal with everything else in life they accept certain practices. … it is important, I feel, it is very important that at the end of the day the Anglo-Saxon approach wins out - because if it doesn’t, then the sport is doomed.”

Umm, okay, Pat.

Why is it that the people who are in charge of getting drugs out of sport have such a problem keeping their collective feet out of their collective mouths?