Founded by a life long cheat in the sport of cycling with 2 bans for using performance enhancing drugs, Tom Danielson, his CINCH cycling coaching business, and now CINCH Elite team have recently come under heavy fire from the gravel community who feel as though Lauren De Crescenzo’s win at SBT Gravel was unfair.
Let’s break this story down piece by piece to provide context around the accusations, and a unique insight on the personal characters of those involved.
The Accusations
Many people have come forward saying that they personally witnessed the CINCH Elite mens team assisting Lauren De Crescenzo throughout the event. It’s been reported that the mens team not only paced Lauren on the route, sheltering her from the wind, keeping her at the maximum speed possible for her power output, but that the CINCH elite mens team also took feeds for De Crescenzo so that she didn’t have to stop at the feed zones like the other female competitors.
The Rules of Gravel
Gravel is a mass start event, and while there are no rules in place that would make this strategy from the team illegal in any way, many consider this play by the CINCH elite team immoral, for their own reasons. Fellow competitors have publicly shared their feelings on social media about what happened. However, it should be known that SBT Gravel did provide early access to registration for the event, ensuring that all their athletes could get a place on the start line. This would likely be seen as an unfair advantage for many competitors.
The Response From CINCH
As you can see in the photos above, Tom’s wife, Kourtney Danielson who boasts herself as the co-founder of CINCH cycling that “heard some rumblings” surrounding the issue raised by the community (as if she and Tom haven’t been glued to their phones reading every comment surrounding the situation). The irony here is rich, as Kourtney poses as the voice of honesty and reason. For those that don’t already know Kourtney was the young podium girl that Tom Danielson had an affair with while he was married to his now ex wife and mother of 2 children, Stephanie Danielson. The affair took place just before Danielson’s second positive drug test that lead to the end of his career.
But wait, it gets better.
We’ll save the 8+ minutes of Tom Danielson’s desperate attempt to once again claim his innocence, clear his name, and take NO ownership in his actions. Even his his MOMENT of TRUTH, Tom Danielson can’t seem to put an honest response together where he takes any ownership at all for his actions. Instead, he’s the victim, and everyone is else is bad for speaking out against him and his athletes. They’re all victims!
The Context of Character surrounding CINCH
While both Kourtney and Tom are often seen talking about ownership on social media as a tool to convince people to join their coaching programs, practicing ownership is something they have never done. When Tom and Kourtney’s affair came public, instead of owning it, they turned the wheels into “Tom’s ex-wife was crazy” and that it was all her fault. They actually refer to Tom’s ex wife with their CINCH clients as “Crazytown.” When Tom tested positive for DHEA, he blamed a contaminated supplement (We’ve heard that one a few times now Tom.) When Tom screws people in business, which there is a long track record of, it’s always the other persons fault. Tom Danielson has a long history of lying, manipulating, and cheating at every opportunity he gets. That is who Tom Danielson is, and Kourtney follows his lead.
Perhaps the most powerful component here was that this article was published on Velonews, which is owned by Velopress, the very company that published Tom’s book. If this story was not true, why would they publish something that would potentially damage the reputation of someone they are actively promoting for book sales?
The entire platform that the CINCH Elite team is formed on is a lie. The concept of what the team currently is was formed after Tom got off the phone with SRAM and they told him that they were investing in Equality in 2021, and that they’d throw him some sponsorship dollars if he could put together a team that would essentially hit their marketing plans key words for the year. Danielson then with the help of two of his masters clients put the concept of this program together. Tom then purchased a building close to his house after his business partner formed a partnership for him with Colnago so that he could open the now “CINCH Cycles.”
Then, a few months later Danielson posted a picture of a young black boy who he never coached saying that he was going to provide scholarships to intercity kids. Tom Danielson has never gone out of his way to support anyone that doesn’t put money in his pocket, so the irony is very rich in this scenario was well. It’s lie, after lie, after lie with Tom Danielson, and that will likely never change. (we confirmed with the Childs mother that Tom had not provided any coaching for him prior to posting)
It turns out the people that spend time around Danielson and support his business also demonstrate the same characteristics. Let’s take a look at some of the characters surrounding this event and the CINCH business. Starting with Ethan Overson, the male seen in the photos with Lauren. Just last year Ethan was on face time talking about how Tom Danielson programs were trash, that Tom was a terrible dictator coach that didn’t actually know what he was doing, and only caused riders to burn out. He wasn’t wrong by the way, but give the kid a free bike and pay for some race entry fees and all of a sudden he’s Tom and Kourtney’s best friend.
As you can see, the victim role that we mentioned above is clearly an act, and CINCH athletes have absolutely no empathy for how other people feel. This screen shot above shows Ethan Overson actively trying to intimidate and bully a female rider for voicing her opinion on the matter. This response is a true reflections of the leadership inside CINCH.
As you can clearly read above in this post on instagram by CINCH athlete Angus Calder outlines the teams plan to protect Lauren and use their entire team to work for her. But as soon as this became unpopular in the community they entirely denied the strategy.
Multiple coaches including Tom’s most successful coach have left the CINCH brand. When something goes wrong, it’s never Tom’s fault, even when he was fired by pro motor cross racer Justin Barcia for leaking personal information about the athletes upcoming contract deal. On the flip side, when somebody has success it has nothing to do with the work that they put in, and it was all Danielson’s “training plan.” It’s absolutely disgusting.
Furthermore it’s clear to see that the entire CINCH client base is a little bit confused about why the public doesn’t appreciate their tactics and or mindset. The brainwashing inside CINCH is incredibly scary because people come to the company for help, and look up to the leadership at the company. The influence trickles down, and its scary.
Summary
At this point, you can probably see that whether Tom created the plan for the mens team to help Lauren win the race or not, you’ll simply never get the honest answer out of Danielson. He’ll likely find a way to make himself the victim in this scenario like he’s continuously done for everything that has gone wrong in his life. Between 2 ex wives, 2 positive drug tests, and a long history of people he’s screwed in business, Danielson and the CINCH cycling crew are not people you want to associate with.
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Article by: Pro Tour Cycling