BikeBiz

It sounds like ASO are adopting the Bernie Ecclestone model for F1. So perhaps UCI will become the Indi series for cycling?

Well if the UCI were men's Pro road cycling only, then maybe so. But the ASO is NOT going to run Track, MTB, BMX, HandiSport, women and juniors on more. Stupid article really. AND the IOC will look closely at the situation. They may decide that the mosh up in cycling is just not worth the crap and exclude cycling from the Olympics.

Anyone who thinks that ASO would do a better job than the UCI - should think again.. ASO is in it for the $$$

Carlton,
This is an ongoing rehash - ProTour brought a lot more money and brought it quickly to the riders. It also threatened what ASO sees as their "rightful" position at the top of the heap. So screw the riders - build the ASO money pile.
That's the ASO agenda. Riders will get the minimum that ASO needs to pass on to keep things going with the sponsorship bucks going top heavy to promoters.
Meanwhile cycling overall will suffer. If/when ASO wins out, the losers will be not just the UCI but riders in all
the disciplines.

The ASO is a far cry from ruling anything. Two grand tours, the California tour and a handful of local one day/mini tours does not make a cycling federation. Where will their capital come from? Can their labs alone, already under suspicion, handle doing all the antidrug testing for every race - as jasmine pointed out. It takes them 6-8 months to get back results now, how long will it take in the future? And what about their anti drug stance? Is Astana the only team to "digrace " the tour? certainly not with CSC, Rabobank, FDJ and others presently riding in the tour with many out of / and in competition positive test result. Ultimate the ASO only care about their pocketbooks and not cycling itself. It's a shame really.

If the UCI shrivelled up and passed away it would make me very happy.
They are the dead hand of mortification that has been repressing cycle technology for a long time. Look what happened with Obree and others.
It exists to make money out of the sport, not to help the sport.

I totally agree that cycling is much more than just road, and that ASO couldn't handle track etc. The piece isn't a "rehash", it's what's happening right now, and could soon come to a head.

Cycling needs a body like the UCI, but the UCI hasn't made many clever decisions in the last few years.

ASO could not replace the UCI.

ASO is just controling some commercial races in JUST road cycling... that's all. What about Youth, veteran sport? What about MTB(XC,DH,4X), BMX, Trials, Track, Indoor?
Aso is just money maker and feed for proffessionals with lobism in goverments... and it will stay such... that's the tactics.... it's loud but small part of all world cycling.

I really cannot go along with the view that the ASO and the UCI are equally to blame for the mess cycling is in. To a very large degree it is the UCI who have led the sport to the brink, what with their long-term 'See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' attitude to doping. (For example, consider the way Verbruggen dismissed the revelations of people like Graham Obree and Gilles Delion). Today McQuaid displays much the same attitude, as is evidenced by his fatuous claim that organised doping no longer exists and that races are faster these days because "the wind is different'! (See http://www.thepuls...?p=73 ). It even seems that the UCI have at times gone out of their way to protect dopers and those suspected of doping. One good example is the way Hein Verbruggen commissioned that biased and misleading report on the work of the LNDD in the wake of Armstrong's retrospective 'positives' for EPO use in the 1999 Tour. This report gives every appearance of being little more than a 'hatchet job' cynically calculated to protect the UCI's icon of 'global cycling'.

Those who believe that the ASO are not genuinely concerned about the effect doping is having on the Tour, (or who believe that all 'the French' are interested in is 'engineering' a French win…) should think back to the way Jean-Marie Leblanc of the ASO fought to have Richard Virenque - France's biggest prospect for a Tour win since Bernard Hinault - excluded from the Tour in the wake of the Festina scandal. Back in 1999 Leblanc said that Virenque's presence is the Tour was "incompatible to the image and reputation of the event we want to preserve." When the UCI once again sided with the dopers and insisted that he be given a place Leblanc's response was "If Virenque won the Tour, it would be a very serious setback for our race".)

Given the astonishing degree of unprofessionalism he has shown since taking office, it is surely time for Pat McQuaid to resign. His only real talents appear to be for megaphone diplomacy and hypocrisy. He argued that the organisers of the Tour of California have the full right to decide who rides their events, but denies that the ASO have the same right. He backed the organisers of the Giro when they initially excluded Astana, but attacks the ASO for refusing to invite Astana to ride the Tour de France. He argued that it is wrong for the ASO to fail to invite Astana on the basis of their past record, and then went ahead and banned Frank Vandenbroucke from all 'ProTour' events on the same grounds! He has argued that the ASO are 'blackmailing' riders, claims he has the interests of the riders at heart and says that he will do everything to defend the supposed 'right' of Contador to ride the Tour (regardless of his implication in the Puerto affair), and yet he has also threatened to ban any rider who takes part in the Paris Nice from all races held under UCI rules for up to 6 months!

To his disgrace McQuaid has also repeatedly resorted to narrow-minded, anti-French rhetoric. Perhaps McQuaid is simply a xenophobe. This might explain his claim that cycling's doping problem is due to the existence of "mafia Western European nations" whose values should be compared with those countries belonging to some mythical, whiter-than-white "Anglo-Saxon culture". This claim has a certain irony given that in the case of Astana it is "Anglo-Saxon'" McQuaid who opposes the implementation of more robust anti-doping measures! Xenophobe or not much of what McQuaid says, (such as his claim that the refusal of the ASO to invite Astana to ride the Tour "was a decision made in France by a French organisation purely for the French public") gives every appearance of being calculated to gain support from those who themselves harbour anti-French prejudices. For example, those who seriously believe that the refusal by the ASO to offer an invite to Astana is part of a supposed 'plot' by the ASO (or should that be 'The French'?...) to 'stop Leipheimer winning the Tour'. (These are probably the same people who believe that Landis was clean but was 'framed' by 'the French', an absolutely ludicrous suggestion given that the ASO needed the Landis doping scandal about as much a bullet in the head!).

In reality the McQuaid/ASO split is about 3 main issues, all one way or another related to the (in the words of Brian Cookson, head of British Cycling) "problematic and divisive" 'ProTour' concept. Firstly there is the desire of the UCI to dictate to the organisers of the sport's major events who gets to ride in those events. Relatedly there is the failure of the UCI to tackle (and even complicity in) the doping problem over the years, something which has led the sport to the brink. The result of this is that those with a financial interest in the sport can no longer risk another doping scandal and so, quite understandably, want to retain full control over who they invite to ride in their events.

Perhaps the biggest issue of all is number three. TV rights. The UCI clearly intends that race organisers should no longer have full control to the TV rights to the sport's major events on the basis that these form part of the 'ProTour brand'. In effect the UCI are telling organisers that the events they own and run no longer 'belong' to them and that the UCI is moving in with the intention of making a grab for the money to be made from the TV rights to events, in particular the Tour de France.

Even as the McQuaid/ASO battle rages, Hein Verbruggen (McQuaid's ever-present shadow) is reported as being in negotiations with several investment companies interested in buying of the rights to televised cycle sport. These include the British CVC Capital Partners group, the Belgian production company Woestijnvis and The Rothschild Group. (See
http://tinyurl.com/2bt5hn ).

If it wasn't bad enough that the UCI sold 'ProTour' licences on promises they were in no position to honour, now they are playing a role in selling of the TV rights to events they don't even own or organise! McQuaid has lost all credibility having made threats he will be unable to follow up without damaging the careers of half the peleton. He is autocratic, seemingly uninterested in negotiation or compromise and sees any voice of dissent as being proof of 'disloyalty', demanding that the dissenter resign from any UCI related post. (As with his demand that AIGCP president Eric Boyer resign from the ProTour Council). He clearly does not have the support of the riders themselves and is increasingly isolated having now suspended any official contact with the AIGCP. On top of all this the UCI are now taking legal action against Dick Pound/WADA in response to the Pound's perfectly valid criticism of the UCI historically lax attitude to doping.

For the good of cycling it's time for McQuaid (and Verbruggen) to go and for the UCI to both stop acting outside it's remit and giving the impression that it believes that the role of the ASO is to act as a 'cash cow' for the UCI and the rest of cycling.

Here here! Agree entirely with you The Yorkshireman. An accurate argument and eloquently put. The UCI are an abomination and the ASO really do have the sport's interests at heart. Anyone who thinks they are just in it for the money - jasmine - should remember how the profits from the TdF support events like Paris-Nice that don't turn a profit. A monument rescued by a well-organised ASO. Prudhomme et Leclerc will save the day!

Ever since the UCI redefined the bicycle, so that a recumbent with pedals wasn't a bicycle, whereas if it was a hand-cycle it was a bicycle, the UCI had shown that its decisions were not based upon logic, but fundamentally flawed.

The UCI should be treated with the derision that it undoubtedly deserves - and totally ignored.