Tripleshot Cycling

If you're a member of this club, you're a member of Cycling BC (CBC). That means you can tell Cycling BC what it should tell Cycling Canada Cyclisme (CCC) and in turn what the CCC should tell the UCI to do about doping and the UCI's own chequered past in cleaning up the sport. All by clicking on a choice above -- imagine that!

The results of this poll may be presented in the form of a resolution to be voted on by Cycling BC's members at CBC's December 1, 2012 AGM in Abbotsford. CBC members can vote remotely on resolutions before the AGM, by requesting a voting package more than 10 days before the AGM. I'll post details on how to do that later.

This coming weekend is CCC's AGM in Toronto (Oct. 26 and 27) and Peter has kindly suggested he may be in a position to communicate any message on this topic our club collectively supports. I believe Peter is attending the AGM in his capacity as a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee. So there will no doubt be opportunities for him to bend certain people's ears. And being able to say, "My cycling club of XX riders says the CCC should do XYZ" could go a long way.

Some background: the CCC is our national federation, the umbrella organization for all the provincial cycling associations, including Cycling BC. The CCC President, John Tolkamp, also holds Canada's only seat on the UCI's Congress of National Cycling Federations, the body that elects the UCI's Management Committee and its President, Pat McQuaid. The Congress is the highest authority of the UCI and it meets once a year.

There is a ton of worthy journalism flying around about pro cycling's doping past, the USADA investigation of Lance Armstrong and US Postal, and the possible complicity of the UCI's current leadership. I encourage you to read up and get involved. How the issues of accountability within regulatory bodies and recent doping scandal bombshells get resolved over the next year or two could have far-reaching impacts on both the future of competitive cycling for juniors coming through our club and on the viability of pro road cycling as a sport that's worth following.

If you want to understand the motivation behind this poll, below is a link to a column published today in the Guardian that provides an excellent statement-by-statement riposte to today's press conference by Mr. McQuaid in which he endorsed USADA's findings of a vast doping conspiracy, but failed to acknowledge the UCI's true role:

Fisking Pat McQuaid: the UCI's lacunae on Usada's Lance Armstrong report

So the Management Committee of the UCI meets in just a few hours to discuss next steps. Fingers crossed they're not a group beholden to Mr. McQuaid, ready to rubber-stamp his take on things and avoid making some tough decisions to put the UCI's credibility on the line.

Encouragingly, the President of the Royal Dutch Cycling Federation sent the UCI a letter yesterday that demands in international, independent commission of inquiry, with teeth. Let's hope there are other influential voices like that around the table tomorrow (today, in Switzerland!) Unfortunately, the Netherlands is not a member of the Management Committee - though it is represented by one H. Verbruggen.

Speaking of influence, please vote in the poll above, if you haven't already done so. Your participation can have a real impact - as early as this Saturday during Cycling Canada's AGM. I'm sure we all appreciate the advocacy Peter is doing on this topic, but evidence he can point to this weekend in Toronto can really help.

The hope here is to contribute to a growing number of voices among the cycling community worldwide that a serious reckoning is necessary, and change must be pursued from the top on down.

+1 Rolf, only takes a second to vote!

Thanks for doing this Rolf. Great guardian link. Hadn't seen that.

Wondering if the resolution should include change to the UCI constitution. Like this. http://bikepure.org/2012/10/3-proposals ... table-uci/. The bit about the management committee being an appointment for life by the president shocked even me.

I'd thought about that, Lister. But I figured for a resolution to successfully get anywhere, it has to find the right balance between specificity sufficient to have the intended impact, and generality sufficient to attract broad support. If you start ripping open the constitution, you invite controversy and detract from the main aim of an independent commission of inquiry. The resolution above intentionally attempts to echo similar calls from around the world, including the Dutch letter linked above.

It's undeniable the UCI's constitution needs a good working over, but that's ideally something a newly elected Management Committee (or a special committee of the Congress) would consider - after an independent inquiry presents such compelling evidence implicating the current Management Committee (or at least Darth and the Emperor) that they're forced to resign.

The heavily Euro-centric voting system for membership in the Management Committee really needs a re-write, particularly in light of the massive increase in competitive cycling in Asia and the Americas over the past 15 years.

Life membership in any international sporting federation makes no sense, at least in terms of positions with real power. I'd argue these aren't judges or tenured professors that need to be protected from the threat of dismissal for political or undue influence in order to carry out their duties. Instead, life tenure just sows the seeds of corruption as members of the Congress jockey to get elected to the Management Committee. Even that (former?) shining paragon of corruption and influence peddling known as the IOC limits its membership to eight-year elected terms.

Hey, Dick Pound (former WADA Pres. and current IOC Vice-Pres.) just effectively endorsed the resolution above, saying (paraphrased) "it's the national cycling federations such as Cycling Canada that need to speak up."

Awright! The UCI's intentions sound pretty good in today's announcement of an independent commission. The devil will be in the details of its terms of reference (still tbd), but it's encouraging to see them finally respond productively to criticism.

Rolf wrote: The results of this poll may be presented in the form of a resolution to be voted on by Cycling BC's members at CBC's December 1, 2012 AGM in Abbotsford.

The AGM is on the 2nd I believe.

Rolf wrote:Awright! The UCI's intentions sound pretty good in today's announcement of an independent commission. The devil will be in the details of its terms of reference (still tbd), but it's encouraging to see them finally respond productively to criticism.

It is a good sign but I also remember the Vrijman report in 2004-2005 on the Armstrong 99 EPO positives. That was done by a guy with some anti-doping credentials, but was an abysmal failure. A pure paid coverup. And no result for sport ethics.

Maybe if Dick Pound was named as head of this inquiry....

EricS wrote: The AGM is on the 2nd I believe.

Quite right. Thanks, Eric! We'll have to see how the commission's terms of reference and constitution end up, but today's announcement takes away a lot of the impetus for the CBC resolution.

Lister Farrar wrote:
Maybe if Dick Pound was named as head of this inquiry....

Yeah, and we all know the chances of that happening on Pat's watch.

The statement today sounds like business as usual for the UCI to me.

There's reason for hope here:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ja ... nciliation

WADA, USADA and CCN are all refusing to participate in the UCI's independent commission unless those testifying are protected from retribution by the UCI. So the commission is demanding the necessary changes be made to its terms of reference.

That's awesome. That means the commissioners are unwilling to act as whitewashers and will likely quit if the UCI insists on controlling the inquiry.

Just like the new, or re-emphasized, "zero tolerance" policies of some teams, trying to bring out the whole truth of recent doping in cycling and identify solutions to the problem will be impossible without some protections and amnesty for riders concerning past infractions.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/uci-to- ... commission

Closer and closer...