Following on from our story on The Sunday Times report
on BUSC of last week, a few BUSCateers
have been prompted to send us their views:
Paul Martin (ex-BUSC organiser):
'he BUSC article was pretty
awful, but not unexpected...I only hope that the Telegraph
will come to the aid of BUSC with some sort of defence.
'None of the problems reported in the Times are particularly
new to BUSC...is it not about time the Race Championship
split from the main holiday? For those who don't
know, BUSC takes the 'spectator' students on the holiday
to fund the racing, and there seems no reason why
the racing couldn't be a third event in its own right,
leaving the piss up to be just that.'
Paul Hothersall (Loughborough
Race Captain):
'I was appalled by this weekend's
"Sunday Times". It was a completely unfair write up
of what was a very good BUSC. They only ever mentioned
the racing as a reference to the drinking competitions
that went on...this guy basically just wanted to slate
the whole event. My impression was that Saalbach want
us back next year, so there can't have been that much
of a problem.
'He seemed to miss the point
entiely that this was a BUSA National Championships.
The other students were out for a general holiday,
and blaming BUSC (ie the racers) is not exactly fair.
Many unis get their entry fees paid for by their unions,
and this sort of negative publicity can never help
in this way.
'Finally, Edinburgh did not
win the event...think that England cleaned up in this
respect (cheers Bristol)'
Gavin Carruthers (Heriot Watt
University):
'I agree that (the article)
was completly biased, erred heavily to the social
side and not what was expected by a non tabloid newspaper.
The standard of racing this year by the competitors
was the highest ever, with ex-Olympic team members,
current Scottish team and future national team members.
How do they expect the sport to grow if newspapers
concentrate on normal student antics only hoping to
sell more issues by glossing up the unsensational
to tabloid material?'
