LIFE AFTER THE NFB Guy Maguire, webmaster and cyclist

by Marie-Pierre Tremblay
June 2003

In 2001, Guy Maguire (1) swapped his directors chair for a bicycle, and his attach� case for press passes and plans for developing around 100 well-documented websites. This new career curve brought him into contact with Canada's top athletes in cycling, diving and cross-country skiing; with a readership of hundreds of thousands of professionals and amateurs around the world, directors of athletic federations, parents of athletes and their trainers; with organizers of races, sports journalists.(2)

www.geocities.com/guymaguirewww
This is the website, the portal to all the sites that Guy has designed.

The Beginnings
"I used to look at Yves Leduc's websites. They were beautiful, well designed and I thought: 'I can't do that. It's too complicated."' It seemed beyond my reach. And then one day, I discovered that my son Louis, who was studying computer science, had created a site for music groups. So Louis showed me how to go about it, and to test myself, I designed a site for Marthe, my wife, who is a social worker and had opened a private practice. She is a specialist in brief therapy, has lectured and published articles that were well received. I wanted to explain what she does, her particular approach, her studies, everything. Marthe was the first social worker in Qu�bec to have her own website. Her site receives many hits."

The birth of www.geocities.com/veloptimum
"I found the experience very interesting, and I wanted to design another one. Because I surf the net a lot, and bicycling has always fascinated me, I was picking up and sending bits of information to people, and I was forever passing on references. So I thought of creating my own website. I called it Veloptimum."

"At the beginning, I wondered what would interest people most: how to buy and maintain a bicycle; where to bicycle in Qu�bec. I also broached security issues: (seats and childs trailers, helmets, what to do about dogs that run after you, etc.) and little by little, I developed two substantial files on things that I feel strongly about because they deal with issues that are serious problems for cyclists: right turn on a red light, cell phone at the wheel."

Today, the information is up on the site: information on biking clubs, trips in Canada and abroad, the results of races, files on the athletes and the volunteers helping to organize the races - in short everything about biking. Veloptimum is the most highly developed French site in Canada. Maybe its not the most beautiful. I'm not a graphic artist or a designer, but it is the most complete."

The first sports site
One day I read in the paper that Lyne Bessette had won the Gold Medal at the Commonwealth Games. That news galvanized me. I had my own general website on cycling, but this was a special event. Nobody was expecting this victory, she wasn't known and I had never heard of her. My first impulse was to cut out the articles in the newspapers and create a site for her. And that evolved into my first site on an athlete. A year later, she was competing in a race in the United States and the sponsor invited people to write a word of encouragement to the competitors. I sent her a little note telling her that I was following her progress and that I had designed a site for her. She replied and gave me her e-mail address. We continued to correspond and I went to meet her with Marthe, in the Sutton area.

In the meantime, I had started a site for Dominique Perras, one of the Canadian cyclists who is very much in the public eye right now. To thank me, he gave me the jersey of his European team. It is the only such jersey in America. But as my build doesn't exactly correspond to that of a racers, and it fit Marthe perfectly, she wore it when we went to meet Lyne Bessette. Everyone around Lyne greeted Marthe wilh respect... Madame Perras! The world of cycling is a very special world. Everyone knows everyone else!"

The Excitement of a Scoop
"Afterwards, I did a site on Clara Hughes who is one of only four athletes in the entire history of the Olympics to have won an Olympic medal at the winter Olympics (speed skating) and the summer Olympics (cycling), and then one for Genevi�ve Jeanson," said Guy all in one breath. "She was a real phenomenon. I started following her before she won the Junior Trial Time Championship and the Junior Road and Track Championship.

I knew her parents and one day, I ran into them at the Atwater Market. "Have you heard from her?" I asked them. "You knew about her winning? We didn't even know she had entered the race. And she won. For the second time running, she beat the record for going up Mount Washington. And we just heard about it," they said. So I broke the story on Genevi�ve's incredible exploit. Within minutes, I put the results up on the Net, three hours before the media did."

The V�lo News
"V�lo Nouvelles (Bike News) is a page that I put out daily. I surf the net, I excerpt what I think might interest cyclists and I publish it. I often receive e-mails from track riders drawing my attention to this or that. I recast their e-mails into press releases and I illustrate them with photos of their team that I take off the Net."

Complicity
"So far, I have designed 33 sites on different Qu�bec cyclists and I keep them up-to-date. I often do the writing myself but, overall, I generate little content. As there is no publicity on my sites, people know that it is all volunteer work, and they help me as much as they can. They send me all kinds of files, e-mails, notes, photos. I also reproduce articles that foreign journalists send me, giving me a new angle on an athlete, or I put up articles for the Qu�bec market that Europeans can also read when their teams are competing over here. I do hyperlinks with many other interesting sites. Because there are few French sites, I have ongoing exchanges with the public, the riders, the journalists. My sites are a kind of focal point where there is something for everyone. I feel my work does serve a purpose. In any case, every day I receive messages from people who seem to really appreciate the site. As for the athletes themselves, they are delighted because the sites give them greater visibility."

Behind the Scenes
By accrediting me, the sports federations recognize the value of my work. And these accreditations are worth their weight in gold for me. I can attend press conferences, take photos with the digital camera the NFB gave me on retirement, I keep up with what's new, I hear and see everything going on behind the scenes. I have a seat in the press cars... That is really fun because in some races, the cars traveling in tandem are in radio contact with the officials and you know immediately where such and such a rider is, who broke away, etc. etc. And because the hatchback is open, you are only about 100 feet from the cyclists. It is very exciting.

I have met some extraordinary people. For example Louis Barbeau who is the road and track technical director of the Federation qu�b�coise de sports cyclistes. That guy is a living encyclopedia on cycling. And I maintain good relationships with journalists, like Martin Smith of the Journal de Montr�al and Simon Drouin of La Presse as well as with photographers Martin Chamberland and Bernard Brault. I get invited to dinners and galas and I love it. Nowadays, I'm part of a universe that I never dreamed would be possible. "I am really part of the gang".

A Passion for Cycling
"Last year I did almost 6,000 kilometers. No, I haven't been biking that long. There wasn't much time with the children and work. But Marthe is very very athletic and she got me involved. I have made so much progress that sometimes I ride with the champions... And we pass our holidays on a bike. We have ridden a lot in Qu�bec, a bit in the States, and also in Holland, France (the ch�teaux de la Loire) and this year it will be Austria.

My priority, when the weather is good, is to bike. I don't do anything before I've gone out riding. In the end, I put in long hours of work but its not a burden, its always a pleasure renewed. In fact, it gives me a lot of pleasure and it helps people. What more can you ask?"

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(1) Guy Maguire joined the NFB in 1967. He consecutively held the positions of Representative in Sherbrooke, Regional Director for Quebec, Chief of French Marketing and Assistant Director, Distribution. He then became Director of Programming (production and distribution outside of Quebec) and Assistant Director general Distribution (French program). He retired in 2001.

(2) During this extended interview - everyone knows Guys eloquence and his love of stories - we also talked about cross-country skiing and diving, two other passions of his. We will come back to that subject in the autumn. In the meantime, do not forget to visit YOUR website at www.geocities.com/nfbclubonf

NB: Do you have a bicycle to give? If you are in or near Montr�al, please give SOS V�lo a call (514-251-8803), Cyclo Nord-Sud (514-843-0077) or the Children of Bolivia (450-763-0849)

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photo 1 : by Louis Panneton-Maguire
photo 2 : Clara Hughes, Guy Maguire and Lyne Bessette at the V�lodrome of Bromont, spring 2002. By Dominique Beaudoin
photo 3 : by V�lo Qu�bec