Swiss Cycling’s nomination of Pat McQuaid for re-election as UCI president may go under the microscope in the coming days, with a meeting of the board likely to be held early next week.
Although the federation announced on May 16th that the board had unanimously decided to back McQuaid, VeloNation understands that this may not actually be the case.
It is thought that the board may instead have simply recognised his right to stand for re-election, and that some of those involved wanted Cycling Ireland’s upcoming EGM on the matter to take place and reach a conclusion before Swiss Cycling made a final decision about whether or not it would nominate him for another term as president.
In that light, there are questions about the announcement of a unanimous endorsement of McQuaid by the board.
On April 12th the board of Cycling Ireland voted 5-1 to agree to McQuaid’s request for nomination. However this decision was deemed invalid after the board did not follow the correct protocol during that meeting. While CI could simply have voted again, it bowed to pressure and instead announced that it would hold an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) on June 15th, where its members would determine if CI should back him or not.
Rather than allow those clubs to vote on the matter, McQuaid then switched to plan B and requested nomination from Swiss Cycling, the federation running cycling in the country he is resident in.
Some of those Cycling Ireland members who are opposed to McQuaid’s re-election are understood to have protested in recent days to Swiss Cycling, saying that the federation’s announced endorsement of the Irishman essentially steamrollered over the on-going process taking place in Ireland.
They want Swiss Cycling to allow CI’s EGM to take place and reach a decision, rather than simply being bypassed.
According to article 11.2 of the UCI’s Constitution, ‘each federation shall recognise and execute the decisions taken by another federation.’ Rendering the Irish EGM invalid and irrelevant by nominating McQuaid appears to go against the sentiments of this regulation.
Earlier this week one of Ireland’s biggest clubs, Orwell Wheelers, voted by a margin of 6-1 not to back McQuaid at the EGM. Other clubs have yet to decide which way they will vote at the EGM.
McQuaid and the UCI have faced criticism over the Lance Armstrong/US Postal Service affair, but he has insisted that the UCI did nothing wrong.
He said today that Armstrong had not come clean over the matter and that he wanted him to ‘jump on his private plane and come to Switzerland’ to speak to the UCI and WADA.
He also said that the UCI was blameless in relation to the widespread doping on the US Postal Service team. “I do not think the UCI made mistakes. The statistics show the UCI was the most advanced in the fight against doping.”