Considering amnesty and other issues, meeting could have crucial importance for Armstrong review
Having announced last week that it would hold a procedural hearing tomorrow in London to discuss the Terms of Reference for its enquiry into the UCI, its dealings with the Lance Armstrong/US Postal team and the subsequent doping case, the Independent Commission has now said that it has been forced to delay that hearing for three days.
“Unfortunately, due to adverse weather conditions in London which have caused travel difficulties for the parties, the hearing has been postponed from Tuesday 22 January and will now take place on Friday 25 January at The Law Society, The Law Society's Hall, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL at 10am,” it said today.
The procedural hearing was announced following the UCI’s decision not to grant the Truth and Reconciliation/amnesty process that was requested by WADA, USADA and Change Cycling Now. The three groups had requested the Independent Commission to implement the move in order to protect witnesses who had relevant information; the commission said that it also agreed with this, but the UCI has said no.
The governing body said last week that it didn’t consider it permissible under the WADA Code and that under those regulations, it would feel obligated to take action. WADA dismissed this, saying that this was not the cases and that the UCI had never requested such a clarification.
“Had the UCI approached WADA to discuss such an amnesty then it would have been advised that such a process would be possible to implement with the approval of WADA’s Foundation Board,” stated WADA president John Fahey last week. “The President of the UCI [Pat McQuaid – ed.] was present in his capacity as a then member of the WADA Foundation Board at its meeting in November 2012 and did not raise the issue.”
Fahey said that he believed the UCI was trying to “avoid its responsibilities and instead seek to blame WADA and others.”
At Friday’s hearing the Independent Commission will consider the Truth and Reconciliation/amnesty issue, as well as the general scope of the Terms of Reference, and in particular Terms of Reference #1, 3 and 9. It will also consider the current state of the timetable which was laid out before Christmas.
WADA, USADA and CCN withdrew cooperation over the amnesty issue, but indicated that they would consider rejoining the process if the UCI complies with the commission’s request.