UCI

Tour of Qatar Preview

Tour of Qatar

There’s little to preview in the Tour of Qatar. The race doesn’t even bother with profiles as each stage profile is a horizontal line. Every finishing straight is wide enough to land an aircraft.

But at the same time this race matters. First as a tactical training ground, a literal sandbox to test skills and technique and if it’s not compulsive viewing, it’s the equivalent of watching a theatre troop in dress rehearsal as it is a practice session for the spring classics. But the race is also notable because Qatar is very influential in world sports, it is the world’s richest country on a per capita basis and recently won the right to the 2016 Cycling World Championships, deploying sums of money that nobody else could match.

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Truth and Recrimination

McQuaid gun

Cycling’s embrace of Truth and Reconciliation did not last long. The ambitious but vague spirit of enquiry and investigation evaporated as the UCI and WADA traded angry press releases with words like “deceit” and “arrogance” being used. This is the public relations equivalent of a bar room brawl.

It’s all so disappointing as those running the sport seem preoccupied with attacking each other rather than confronting the ever-present spectre of doping. We’d all like to talk about the racing but the people at the top want to shout about themselves.

These two bodies appear unable to trust each other and resort to leaking private correspondence to win petty public relations battles. So how can anyone trust them to manage a broad and complex Truth and Reconciliation process?

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Stuck in the Sand

Car in sand

Ever seen a car stuck in the sand? Each attempt by the driver to get going just makes the wheels spin and so digs the car in deeper. The engine revs, the wheels spin, dirt flies up but nobody is going anywhere. Inside the car the driver is sweating, frantically engaging first gear and then reverse but their desperation is only making things worse.

What’s this got to do with cycling? Well it reminds me of the UCI. President McQuaid seems stuck and frantic attempts to get the governing body on the move are stalling and leave the sport sunk in the past. Meanwhile WADA stands on the sidelines, holding a tow rope but preferring to criticise the immobile driver rather than helping.

In the latest instalment the UCI has just disbanded its Independent Commission, the panel set up to review the issues and allegations arising out the Armstrong/US Postal conspiracy case.

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The World Tour of Confusion

Bernhard Eisel Sky

The UCI World Tour is the calendar of top races with the best teams. Only each mention of the World Tour often comes with this definition attached, as if we constantly need reminding. The sport’s premier series of races can be confusing.

Back in 2011, Bernhard Eisel said the World Tour wasn’t a clear concept. Two years later and when asked again this week it seems little has changed. In an interview with cyclingnews.com, the Team Sky rider says he’s not sure of the rules. If a senior pro says this, what’s a casual fan to make of it?

Whether it’s the rankings, the branding or the very concept, the World Tour confuses. Yet it’s a good idea only it needs some work to make it more understandable. Let’s look at the words, logos, challenges and the money spent. Plus, armed with the rulebook, try to answer Eisel’s questions.

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Should the UCI have Disqualified Armstrong in 1999?

Le Monde made some serious allegations against the UCI yesterday. The French newspaper accuses cycling’s governing body of “covering for Lance Armstrong” and even alleges that they accepted a “falsified document” to help Armstrong escape a doping ban in 1999.

Some these tales have been doing the rounds before but paper published the documents relating to the controls in July 1999. Now a backdated and falsified document is a very serious charge. But I can reveal another document from 1999 that should have seen Armstrong ejected from the Tour de France: the UCI rulebook.

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USADA, WADA, UCIIC vs UCI

Acronymn soup

Too many acronyms? Yes but no matter which way you arrange the letters this spells trouble for the UCI.

In the past 24 hours two anti-doping agencies, USADA and WADA, have gone public with criticism of cycling’s governing body. Now they’ve been joined by the Independent Commission created by the UCI which has itself turned against the governing body to create a power struggle over its remit and capabilities.

There’s even talk cycling could be thrown out of the Olympics but don’t believe the hype. But this is a battle for the truth and the UCI is going to lose.

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Lance Armstrong’s Road to Redemption

Armstrong Oprah Winfrey

Lance Armstrong to confess to doping? Thanks to USADA there’s already hundreds of pages of evidence. At first the Oprah Winfrey interview looked like a celebrity stunt. Only the story now seems to be going a step further with reports that Armstrong will testify against senior UCI officials, shifting the story away from sofa interview into the saddle of pro cycling.

But the road to redemption will make riding seven Tours look easy. For starters if he wants to reduce his ban, getting it shorter than eight years looks tough and that’s just confronting the textual certainty of the WADA Code. Changing public opinion is altogether different.

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World Tour vs Pro Continental Ethics

Gerard Vroomen raises a very good point on his blog that others have mentioned on Twitter in recent days too: if the Katusha team is rejected from the UCI’s World Tour on ethical grounds why did the Licence Commission say the team is free to apply for a lesser Pro Continental licence?

Surely a team could be in the second division because it has weaker finances or less ranking points, but not because it has looser morals and easier ethics?

As a follow-up to Vroomen’s observation here are the rules for the World Tour and Pro Continenal candidates alike. A signed copy of Eugène Christophe’s 1919 maillot jaune if you can spot the difference…

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Were The UCI’s Anti-Doping Policies Inadequate?

UCIIC

Having been away for two glorious weeks without internet I missed the news of the UCI’s independent commission, UCIIC, being set up to investigate issues and allegations arising out USADA’s verdict on Lance Armstrong.

Now this body is seeking evidence here some evidence to suggest the UCI publicly rejected an obvious and easy method to catch cheats.

Here’s a story to chew on.

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What Next For Katusha?

Joaquim Rodriguez

Katusha had a great end to 2012 with success for much of the Vuelta and Rodriguez’s win in Il Lombardia which crowned him was the World No.1 rider in the UCI rankings whilst the team finished an impressive second overall in the same rankings. Only now the taste of champagne has gone and instead the UCI’s thrown a bucket of ice cold water over the team and its plans for 2013.

Monday’s news that Katusha have been refused a spot in the UCI World Tour for 2013 took everyone by surprise. Even the team management was confused, imagine what riders and sponsors must think? But the Russian team wasn’t dazed for long. Within 24 hours the lawyers were on the case and a public relations campaign has started too.

What are the options for the team? Can it get back in or is it out of the sport for good. What about the riders, will they stay with a team without a licence? If we can’t predict the future we can explore the scenarios and check the rules.

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