Event saboteurs exist beyond Mull

2009 saw two major Scottish outdoor competition events troubled by circumstances impacting on their respective programmes.

Both incidents were the height of irresponsibility and both could have caused major injury to participants, one also to livestock.

Both actions appear to have arisen from annoyance at the temporary road closures associared with each event.

The Mull event saw a herd of cattle wander the narrow road of one of the spectacular Tour Of Mull Rally’s night stages. This incident was unlikely to have been coincidental, given prior local forecasts that this wold happen. Drivers could have died. Livestock would have died. Fortune did what fortune seldom does and protected both innocents in this case.

Part of the same stretch of road was to have been used in a stage on the following night. However, when the farmer owning the cattle was unable to give rally organisers an assurance that the animals would not ‘stray’ again, that stage had to be cancelled in the interests of safety.

Then another prestigious event, the cycling world’s 81 mile Etape Caledonia form Pitlochry in Perthshire and with an international field, saw a stretch of road 43 miles into the race, below the unforgettable Schiehallion mountain, strewn with tacks. The result was chaos of the most dangerous kind – tyres shredded as they tore into the tack field at speed and competitiors tumbling from their bikes under each others wheels. Emergency Services vehicles were also disabled in the attack.

The race had to be stopped for 90 minutes while the stretch of road was swept free of thousands of tacks.

Both incidents showed the anarchic lack of responsibility children can display but it is improbable that either was carried out by other than adults.

The Etape Caledonia sabotage saw retired solicitor Aleexander Grosset arrested and charged with the single offence of acting in a way that showed complete disregard for the safety of competitors and pedestrians in the culpable and reckless disposition of tacks which damaged cycles and emergency services vehicles.

Mr Grosset maintained his innocence. On 7th January, a Crown Office spokesperson said only that after ‘a full and careful consideration of all the facts and circumstances’, there would be no further action against him.

We have to remember that none of us ‘own’ Scotland or our own part of it. The economics of maintaining public services to a small population dispersed across a vast and difficult territory demand that we share it and welcome those who come to explore its opportunities.

Temporary disruptions to individual routines with road closures are no great impediment in he greater scheme of things.

If we don’t develop and support activity tourism of all kinds – which fits Scotland’s fabulous natural resources, the straightforward fact is that there will be not be enough income or enough jobs to support any of us continuing to live in our’s more remote places. As they say, there’s  no such thing as a free lunch.