Cycling needs urgent attention

Plans, including the overhaul of UCI, have been mooted to secure sports' future

When cycling was still a provincial affair in which riders changed clothes behind middle schools before races, the news that its most recognizable star had doped to win the Tour de France would most likely not have mattered. And it would have been unthinkable to imagine an investigation, undertaken in the United States, no less, revealing the sport to be in structural disarray, ruled by dysfunctional leadership and a code of silence.

But the stakes have clearly increased and the geography broadened. Riders in the 100th edition of the Tour de France, which ends July 21 in Paris, are now transported in plush buses and housed at luxury hotels. Participating teams are backed by major sponsors like British Sky Broadcasting, whose Team Sky has a budget of more than $24 million. The Tour’s television feed is being broadcast in 190 countries.

And after the investigation last year by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation into Lance Armstrong’s use of performance-enhancing drugs, which led some sponsors to rethink their support for cycling, many in the sport now see a need to change the way cycling operates as a business.

That call to change the business side of the sport is a topic that nearly a decade ago seemed as taboo as singling out dopers. Now it is almost de rigueur.

Numerous plans for securing the sport’s future have emerged in the past year; including the development of revenue sharing between teams and race organisers, implementation of a Formula One-like racing calendar and the overhaul of the sport’s governing body, the International Cycling Union, or UCI.

Repairing the UCI's image is perhaps the biggest challenge that cycling faces in the immediate future. USADA’s reasoned decision, the nearly 1,000- page dossier that supported its ruling to ban Armstrong for life from cycling and strip him of his seven Tour titles, included details of questionable decision-making by UCI officials in the past two decades. In one instance, officials accepted two donations totaling $125,000 from Armstrong, which former teammates Tyler Hamilton and Floyd Landis alleged was to cover up a positive test for EPO at the 2001 Tour of Switzerland. The current UCI president, Pat McQuaid, agreed to form an independent commission this past autumn to investigate the claims, but it still has not occurred.

McQuaid, in office for the second of the Armstrong donations, said in an interview Tuesday that he was “still committed to the process,” but many in the sport are not so sure. Self-reflection has not been a highlight of McQuaid’s eight-year tenure at the helm of UCI; he has often employed draconian leadership tactics, even turning to legal action in attempts to silence critics.

McQuaid, an Irishman, defended his leadership style. “You don’t make omelets without breaking a few eggs,” he said. “I don’t profess to be soft and easy-going.”

But that attitude may leave him without a job. The UCI presidential election is in September, and McQuaid had been running unopposed for a third term until Brian Cookson, the British Cycling president, announced his candidacy in early June.

“His bullying and haranguing style seems designed to antagonize everyone who does not share his approach to the governance of world cycling,” Cookson said of McQuaid last week.

Cookson, also a UCI board member, oversaw the revival of cycling in Britain. Among his credits include developing Team Sky, with whom Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France last year.

In a news conference on June 24 in Paris, Cookson unveiled a campaign plan aimed at “restoring trust” in the UCI, highlighted by a reform of anti-doping measures.

McQuaid said that cycling’s drug testing was as independent as possible, but the UCI still both funds and supervises its anti-doping efforts. And though measures appear to have become more effective since the biological passport was implemented in 2008 - world-renowned stars like Alberto Contador have been suspended for doping, an unlikely proposition during the Armstrong era - the cycling union’s proximity to testing remains problematic.

The budgets for most teams competing in the Tour this month are “85 to 90 percent” sponsor-funded. In recent years, cyclists and members of support staffs on teams sponsored by HTC and Rabobank were sent scrambling when the corporations pulled their sponsorship, citing doping scandals. For teams, supporting anti-doping reform has become about more than fair play; it is now an essential part of the business plan.
But doping is not the only issue giving sponsors pause.

The UCI WorldTour, cycling’s top level of racing, which includes all the Grand Tours and less prestigious events like Paris-Nice, lacks the structural stability offered by other professional sports.

The teams that compete in the WorldTour are not permanent members, but face an annual review by the UCI to keep their competition licenses. It is often a formality, but admission is not guaranteed - just ask Team Katusha, denied a license this offseason before an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland reversed the UCI decision.

And riders are not guaranteed to be at every major race. The racing calendar - this year, there are 29 events spread over 10 months - has become a game of choice for many riders and teams.

“For a really sort of lightweight fan, learning about the sport is complicated,” said Jonathan Vaughters, general manager of Garmin-Sharp. “It’s like, 'Is this the cool race? Or is it this one?' It has got to be simplified.”