UCI ejects management committee member after IOC complaint

Schenk is the former head of the German Cycling Federation and an attorney to boot.

But the UCI is now distancing itself from her, saying it is "serenely" awaiting the decision of the IOC over Schenk’s complaint filed to the IOC’s Ethics Commission.

Schenk complained that Article 52 of the UCI Constitution has been breached by "employing" Pat McQuaid. Article 52 states "No member of the Management Committee shall be bound by an employment or service contract with the UCI, a federation or a continental confederation at the same time."

McQuaid is a member of the Irish family that dominates cycle racing in Ireland. He’s currently head of the UCI’s road commission and had been widely expected to be nodded in as UCI president in September. However, two challengers have now entered the fray, although McQuaid is still expected to be elected by a wide margin. See link below.

It’s claimed he has been "groomed" for the job of UCI president after moving to Switzerland with his family in February this year. The two challengers are now being allowed to "shadow’ outgoing president Hein Verbruggen.

Schenk told French newspaper L’Equipe that she had requested information about McQuaid’s contract with the UCI "but I’ve had no response so far."

She claims McQuaid’s wife left her job in Ireland and isn’t working in Switzerland, and that Pat McQuaid must be being paid by the UCI, a breach of the organisation’s constitution, she said.

Verbruggen told L’Equipe no impropriety had occurred but Schenk is not convinced:

"Verbruggen has said that the management committee had voted to provide McQuaid with compensation to repay him for all the time he’s put in at the UCI, but that’s not true because I’m a member of the Management Committee and there has never been a vote on this matter."

The UCI has issued a strongly worded rebuttal of Schenk’s claims and it’s worth repeating here in full:

Press Release : The UCI Management Committee shows solidarity with President Hein Verbruggen

The International Cycling Union’s Management Committee has taken note of the complaint against the UCI, against its President Mr. Hein Verbruggen and against the member of the Management Committee Mr. Pat McQuaid, which is lodged by Mrs Sylvia Schenk towards the International Olympic Committee’s Ethics Commission.

The UCI’s Management Committee expresses its full solidarity to the persons touched by Mrs. Schenk’s action, which attains to their respectability as well as to that of the whole Federations and its members.

The UCI’s Management Committee considers Mrs Schenks’ behaviour, herself member of the same Management Committee until next September, as totally unacceptable, and decides that all relations with her will be stopped with immediate effect.

The UCI Management Committee reminds that this action by Mrs. Schenk is evidently keeping in the frame of the manoeuvres aiming to disrupt the election of the new UCI President, and is in conflict with her agreement to the consensual agreement expressed by the UCI Management Committee in favour of Mr. Pat McQuaid two years ago in Hamilton.

The UCI Management Committee had to note with regret that after her forced resignation from her position as President of the German Cycling Federation (BDR), and because of the numerous controversies which have characterized her mandate, Mrs Schenk has launched herself into a campaign aiming to unsettle the internal balance of the UCI.

Deprived of her Federation’s support, and consequently of all other ambition thereof, Mrs Schenk has been able to concentrate solely on her new objective, trying to do everything possible to reach her goal.

By confirming the total regularity of procedures followed in its meetings and the collegial structure of the decision taken concerning the election of the new UCI President, the UCI Management Committee, who has introduced a complaint against Mrs. Schenk toward the UCI Ethics Commission, rejects therefore completely and firmly all accusations that Mrs. Schenk has sent a number of times, also with the complacency of a number of press bodies, towards the persons and the organisation as mentioned.

Finally, the UCI Management Committee remains serenely awaiting the response from the IOC’s Ethics Commission.

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