I'm also sure there's no connection between Chassot's (the Swiss fed president and owner of Tour de Romandie) fetid attempt this Spring to rescue Pat's nomination, the increasingly dark outlook for Pat's cronies, and
the renewal three days ago of the Tour de Romandie UCI licence for the next three years!
Some good back-scratching going on there.
The renewal followed
this amendment of the Road Race regulations, passed on July 1, 2013 which restricts the duration of newly issued race licences to 2016. This amends the existing rule which says that UCI Worldtour licences are valid "in principle for four years".
Without knowing any further context or the real impact of that amendment, a cynic may infer that this is some gerrymandering in anticipation of the Presidential cycle occurring again in four year's time. If Pat's still President, having race licences expire
before the 2017 election could be very helpful to get votes in his pocket.
There are other possible consequences of this strange rule change. But I think the point is that people like me wouldn't even be nosing about and thinking about things like this if there wasn't a huge cloud of suspicion and cynicism surrounding everything the UCI does these days.