Ex-Team Sky rider Jonathan Tiernan-Locke has been banned from driving for the second time in less than two years.
Magistrates in Bodmin banned the 32-year-old from driving for 41 months and fined him £315, reports Devon Live.
The Plymouth-born former professional cyclist pleaded guilty to being twice the drink-drive limit when police stopped him in his Ford Ranger at St Ann’s Chapel in Cornwall last November.
Tiernan-Locke’s previous ban from driving came in July 2015, when he was banned for 17 months, subsequently reduced by a quarter after he attended a drink drive rehabilitation course.
> Tiernan-Locke handed ban for drink-driving
At the time, he was serving a two-year anti-doping ban for irregularities in his biological passport, which he claimed were caused by a drinking binge to celebrate his signing for Team Sky.
Tiernan-Locke, who was also stripped of his 2012 Tour of Britain win, returned to racing last year after his drugs ban expired.
However, he was only given a Category 2 licence by British Cycling and has now retired from the sport.
39 thoughts on “New drink-driving ban for Jonathan Tiernan-Locke”
The bloke is patently a
The bloke is patently a scumbag, time the cycling world stopped caring about him.
rliu wrote:
I think the correct analysis would be that he is suffering from a combination of alcohol addiction and mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs to stop him being a danger to both himself and other people.
barongreenback wrote:
I think the correct analysis would be that he is suffering from a combination of alcohol addiction and mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs to stop him being a danger to both himself and other people.— rliu
My thoughts exactly.
barongreenback wrote:
I think the correct analysis would be that he is suffering from a combination of alcohol addiction and mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs to stop him being a danger to both himself and other people.— rliu
I think you give him undue leeway. He is unrepentant about his drinking and also tried to use it as an excuse to cover up doping, saying an all night bender caused his suspect biological passport values. Where is the evidence that he wants to reform? I don’t count a court ordered drink driving course as self driven desire to change.
rliu wrote:
I think the correct analysis would be that he is suffering from a combination of alcohol addiction and mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs to stop him being a danger to both himself and other people.
— barongreenback I think you give him undue leeway. He is unrepentant about his drinking and also tried to use it as an excuse to cover up doping, saying an all night bender caused his suspect biological passport values. Where is the evidence that he wants to reform? I don’t count a court ordered drink driving course as self driven desire to change.— rliu
Alcoholism is an illness and not a choice. I can’t diagnose sitting from here but there is a pattern emerging. Many alcoholics are outed by a drink driving conviction but that in itself is rarely enough to fix the problem. Treating addition is incredibly complex, time consuming and painful.
barongreenback wrote:
You may be right in this relatively modern theory, I don’t know. But it seems to me that, partly in the light of such opinions, you can be addicted to almost anything now. Sex, gambling, video games and food all spring to mind and I wonder what’s next. Paedophilia?
mike the bike wrote:
You may be right in this relatively modern theory, I don’t know. But it seems to me that, partly in the light of such opinions, you can be addicted to almost anything now. Sex, gambling, video games and food all spring to mind and I wonder what’s next. Paedophilia?— barongreenback
Yes. You can be addicted to pretty much anything. Alcohol, Porn, exercising, washing your hands too much, sitting at a computer reading commenting on news stories, sitting on a computer inhabiting imaginary worlds (gaming). Addiction is a psychological issue largely, though some drugs have physiologically addictive properties, but yes, you can be addicted to pretty much anything. As you suggest there are people out there with sexual addictions.
barongreenback wrote:
I think the correct analysis would be that he is suffering from a combination of alcohol addiction and mental health issues. I hope he gets the help he needs to stop him being a danger to both himself and other people.— rliu
You are never far from a liberal apologist for a wrong-doer in this country, are you?
There are lots of people with alcohol/mental health issues who are responsible and perceptive enough to know that driving a vehicle when you are twice the limit is a bad thing to do.
If a drink driver were to turn you into a paraplaegic one day maybe hearing that ‘alcohol addiction/MHP’s’ excuse in Court might change your thinking on people like JT-L a little?
rliu wrote:
Steady on…
Doper, cheat, liar; it’s a matter of public record he’s all three. But I’ve got a fair bt of sympathy for him. He took a risk with PEDs and it blew up in his face spectacularly . I can imagine the life he knew up to that point came to a crashing halt. Two drunk driving convictions makes him a dickhead, for sure, but it also hints at a life out of control hell bent on self destruction. He needs help, I hope he gets it.
I wonder whose fault he will
I wonder whose fault he will say this is. Increasingly clear that he doesn’t think everyone else’s rules apply to him… suggests an underlying psychological issue, which I hope he gets help with.
Ha, so in the US, we call it
Ha, so in the US, we call it “Drunk-driving”. When I read the title, I thought it was saying he drank some energy drink with traces of PEDs which caused him to get a ban from cycling.
With so many deaths of cyclists caused by drunk drivers, it’s fitting the cycling world ditches him.
Whilst I, as I am sure most
Whilst I, as I am sure most of British society, abhor drink driving this story has a tenous link to cycling at best. Ex-cyclist who also got a dope conviction is done for a (bad) driving offence.
As for anyone in this situation he needs to get his life back in order and back on track. I hope he can never nice to see another human being falling.
As for the cycling world ditching him, obviooulsy we haven’t as we have this article so your statement asmallsol, is an oxymoron, just saying.
I do hope JTL repents and reforms
Can we (well, I’m looking at
Can we (well, I’m looking at you road.cc) now put him in a box marked “dickhead”, put that box in a drawer, lock it and lose the key? I don’t see any reason to mention him again. Ever.
atlaz wrote:
room 101…
This is not a good look.
This is not a good look.
Drink-driving, bad. Twice in a short time makes it look serial: very bad.
There’s something that sits even worse about a cyclist being done for such a dangerous driving act, and it being in a truck. I’ve got a Ranger and, while you can do serious damage in any motorised vehicle, it’s much more of a ‘weapon’ than a car. 2 tons + booze = potential carnage.
Hmmm. Looks like he has an
Hmmm. Looks like he has an alcohol problem. Occam’s Razor suggests maybe he was telling the truth all along about the all-night bender. Maybe the fall-off in his performance after he joined Sky wasn’t caused by no longer being able to take performance enhancing drugs but by taking rather too much of a performance inhibiting drug, alcohol (voice of experience there, boys & girls…), possibly in response to the stress of suddenly finding himself in the big time. Wouldn’t be the first time **that’s** happened.
Man, you really are a bunch
Man, you really are a bunch of key board warriors aren’t you?
Here is another view… this is a man failing… falling apart. His world, reputation torn from him in what, in his eyes at the very least, was an unjust suspension. Whatever you may think about him being a pantomime villian who doesn’t give a shit, I see a man with deep mental health problems failing to cope and simply failing.
Lets play this out… should he ultimately take his own life, do you warriors celebrate the death of scum at the end of your virtual pitch forks, or maybe question just how much importance you, me all of us place on riding pissing bikes?
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
Judging those being judgemental. Alanis is on the phone, she wants… well, you know.
Of course it’s a lot more complicated than anyone will nail on here. But if all Joe Public knows about you is that you rode bikes for a living, got caught with a dodgy biological passport and tried to blame it on a large night out and whinged about it, and then got caught drink-driving, then some of those Joe Publics a going to think you’re a twat who’s lying about doping, or a twat who’s pissed away a promising cycling career, or both.
That isn’t a failing of those Joe Publics – that’s just How Fame Works.
Also, no-one was behaving like a keyboard warrior – nobody’s been anywhere near as hysterical as you seem to have interpreted, and nobody’s threatening to give him a shoeing.
Jimmy Ray Will wrote:
If he takes his own life lets hope he does it before he kills someone else whilst drink driving! Maybe he does have mental problems and he can get help for that, although it won’t be an instant fix. A shame for a talented rider but he has to resign himself to a normal life now, he’s not a superstar and I’d sooner he never made headlines again. That way he’d have his life back on track too with any luck.
As said I don’t see the point
As said I don’t see the point of reporting on JTL.
He is obviously a person with some serious problems. I hope that he can get himself sorted out, preferably as soon as possible before something truly horrible happens to him.
A sad tale IMHO.
Yeah I said the cycling world
Yeah I said the cycling world should stop reporting on him as he has no discernible links to pro cycling any more. Not that the whole world should abandon him as some are inferring.
It’s equally a jump to infer he is an alcoholic because he’s been caught drink driving twice. It’s logical to discuss someone like Paul Gascoigne’s alcoholism issues because he has spoken about it openly and has been pictured looking ill. As far as the public information about Tiernan Locke goes it’s more logical to conclude he just likes to get p***ed and chance it driving home. Until something else emerges I don’t see why I’d conclude otherwise.
Ford Ranger = knobhead
Ford Ranger = knobhead vehicle par excellence.
Valbrona wrote:
Oh get back in your box, you pointless troll.
I got mine to compensate for my tiny penis.
I would just like it to be
I would just like it to be known that I have a Ferrari, actually two, and would drive neither of them drunk.
If going out on the pi$$
If going out on the pi$$ caused his bio passport irregularities in the first place, maybe he was just driving back from ‘training’….
It can’t be easy in all those 234 races once your haematocrit drops to average.
Alcoholism, possibly a grain
Alcoholism, possibly a grain of sympathy there. Driving whilst intoxicated? Hell no.
+1 on the not reporting any
+1 on the not reporting any more on J T-L. Not because he’s a scumbag, not because he’s a dickhead, but because he’s another human being whose life is clearly falling apart. From one who has been through some of that, it was hell enough. I can not imagine that having it reported in national media serves any purpose that is helpful to anyone involved. For that reason alone, reporting should stop. The by product may be that it helps ameliorate some of the damage being done.
And for those of you with the tar and feathers ready… There but for the grace of God….
madcarew wrote:
A fictional sky fairy isn’t going to help him.
More like ‘there but for the sake of keeping your shit together’. Plenty do, without regularly getting in their 2-ton death machine while off their box.
davel wrote:
And for those of you with the tar and feathers ready… There but for the grace of God….
— davel A fictional sky fairy isn’t going to help him. More like ‘there but for the sake of keeping your shit together’. Plenty do, without regularly getting in their 2-ton death machine while off their box.— madcarew
Fictional sky fairies weren’t invoked or implied, being a good pastafarian myself. Just a well known figure of speech. Perhaps more properly
“There, but for the good grace of my genetic and social advantages, go I.
With you there…
With you there…
It’s one of those scenarios where a boot up the arse and a hug are probably needed.
Undoubtedly needs help, and hopefully has that from his network of friends and family, people who actually know and care for him.
But society needs drink-driving and other ills to be treated with the judgement and scorn as it is being done here. It doesn’t look pretty in comments, but I’d never want to see a story like this full of ‘get better, mate’ posts from strangers. It needs to remain a surefire way of seeing someone treated as a pariah by people who don’t know you.
I really wish they would get
I really wish they would get their reporting correct.
He wasn’t stopped by police he crashed into the back of a stationary car at a junction that had 3 children in it.
He left the scene of the crash only to try and walk back past 15 mins later only to be grabbed by a witness and held until police arrived.
He then tried to get out of a breath test.
The police got his bloods at the hospital.
Why the necropost?
Why the necropost?
“Will someone please think of
“Will someone please think of the children?”
I thought the real take away from this thread was to basically stop giving the chap any publicity. Why bring this up again now out of itnerest?
As an aside, he has totally gone off grid down here, no one has mentioned his name in months.
Why not ? Certainly adds a
Why not ? Certainly adds a lot more to the story.
Pissed up and driving a tank of a car into a car carrying children.
What a w&nker.
fenix wrote:
Apologies for spilling over from other threads, Blazing Saddles-style, but I don’t get your rationale. You call out this blatantly antisocial behaviour. OK.
But for me, it isn’t binary, whereby you’re either driving pissed into kids or cyclists, or you’re not. It’s a sliding scale, where the antisocial behaviour is ratcheted up gradually, and that includes all sorts of being a twat on the road.
I know that cyclists can be twats on the road. But that has such little actual impact (that we can measure and debate) as to be negligible, and the KSI risk that comes with being a twat on the road, as a cyclist, is pretty much all on the cyclist.
(@madcarew – we don’t have stats for the mental and emotional impacts that squashed cyclists might cause, hence me focusing on KSI stats, which we do have – roughly. I’m sure there is third-party trauma from getting yourself squashed, as you said on another thread, but how much is anyone’s guess; you think it’s 100, I think it’s 1 – it’s a pointless debate. What we measure, in KSI stats, says that drivers cause virtually ALL the problems.)
Ill-conceived comments like Hoy’s and products like those gloves help to create the impression that ALL road users are responsible for that antisocial behaviour, and its impacts. That’s just bullshit.
Sounds like the guy needs a
Sounds like the guy needs a bit of help and understanding
Not going to get that here, is he? We’re all real men.
don simon wrote:
How do you know peoples genders over the internet ?
And bless – ok so he nearly killed three kids but bless his lil socks. He’s troubled.
fenix wrote:
How do you know peoples genders over the internet ?
And bless – ok so he nearly killed three kids but bless his lil socks. He’s troubled.
— don simon You’re absolutely correct, and I apologise. I should have been more aware of the gender question. The assumption that females have more empathy than males is a true misconception in these modern times of blurred lines, I don’t mean Robin Thicke blurred lines as that might upset you more, I mean that we, as people, are more equal than ever and should be treated as such. We should demonstrate the same level of understanding and empathy for others in the way we expect of ourselves.
I think that should deflect enough from the fact that you have fuck all understanding of mental health issues and certainly no empathy.
I suggest that if the guy has such a drinking problem, then there are underlying reasons for this that you appear incapable of understanding.
May karma bite you on the balls!
Have a great weekend!!!
…At the time, he was
…At the time, he was serving a two-year anti-doping ban for irregularities in his biological passport, which he claimed were caused by a drinking binge to celebrate his signing for Team Sky…
I suspect for most riders at Team Sky it’s not the drinking to celebrate the signing that cause the irregularities in their biological passport, but the simple act of signing for Team Sky.