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news
UCI logo on whiteUCI asks for feedback on future of cycling… but stakeholders need to get skates on
The UCI has revealed that it has written to “all of cycling’s stakeholders” to ask for feedback on its recently announced Stakeholder Consultation – though it has given them less than a week to respond, hardly time for any considered ideas to be formed, and its definition of “stakeholder” isn’t all-encompassing, excluding for example media and fans alike.
In a press release issued this morning, the governing body said “letters have been sent to riders, teams, race organisers, national federations, administrators, sponsors, industry representatives, anti-doping organisations and sports bodies, asking for their comments on a proposed list of topics that have been divided into four main pillars of discussion: globalisation, anti-doping, riders and sports calendar.
“Stakeholders have until 10th December to send their comments and suggestions about the list of topics back to the UCI, which will then finalise and announce the format of the Stakeholder Consultation.”
The consultation will be undertaken in the first quarter of the new year and is separate from the Independent Commission, details of which were announced last week, which will investigate the UCI’s role in relation to the United States Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation of the US Postal scandal.
The UCI’s announcement comes the day after the conclusion of the two-day Change Cycling Now summit in London, which also involved representatives of two of the key stakeholder groups the governing body is looking to engage – Jonathan Vaughters, currently head of the professional teams’ association, the AIGCP, and Gianni Bugno, president of the professional riders’ association, the CPA.
Unsurprisingly, the UCI’s press release makes no mention of the Change Cycling Now summit, whose delegates included two members of the Cycling Fans’ Voice group which has been set up to call for fans to be given a say in how the sport is run.
UCI President Pat McQuaid commented: “We will work together to tackle issues of concern and build a bright future for cycling. We will look at how we can continue the process of globalising cycling, encourage wider participation and make the sport even more interesting for spectators.”
Without asking the spectators themselves, apparently.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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15 comments
I'm new to the Byzantine and smelly politics of cycling but ...err ...does the UCI have to run it? Cycling seems ripe for a Kerry Packer or Bernie Ecclestone type earthquake that ultimately puts competent people in charge.
I'm a UCI license holder. My money is in part funding this shambles.
Am I a stakeholder?
The timescale for responses is pretty insulting, but in mitigation, most observers and stakeholders don't need much time to formulate their views – most have been well-rehearsed in the days following Armstrong being stripped of his titles.
It does rather look like the desperate clutching of straws by the current hierarchy to keep their sticky, fat mitts on the levers of power and control
Fair play to British Cycling – they have tweeted a link inviting members to submit their views on the consultation document.
Agreed. Good on Cookson. Suggest as many of us as possible dont pass up on the opportunity to comment.
One week response deadline - the"re taking the p*ss
UCI bullying their way forward as usual. No time for anyone to form a suitable response and the exclusion of the media and the fans is a big, big mistake. All this does is adds more strength to change cycling.org.
Why would the media be a key stakeholder group? Their business is to report, nothing more.
Fans, different story. We all know full well that the UCI dont consider fans as worthy of consultation.
UCI organised a meeting with race organisers yesterday to get their thoughts. Same with team managers and rider reps today.
So that's how they're covering off those groups at least.
No media coverage = no product to sell to sponsors. Don't forget that when you strip it right back, the sport itself, or at least its major races, were invented to flog newspapers. Nothing more, nothing less.
L'Equipe and the Gazzetta dello Sport do perhaps get some form of back-door input due to their respective ownership by ASO and RCS, but the rest of the media is out in the cold.
Without the efforts of papers such as the Sunday Times and L'Equipe, Lance Armstrong might still have seven Tour de France wins to his name.
Alberto Contador only went public on his failed test because German media were about to break the story. The UCI was certainly in no rush.
Michele Scarponi confessed to having trained with Michele Ferrari because the Gazzetta dello Sport has someone close enough to the Padova invetigation to have secured trancripts of intercepted conversations.
Without the media, or at least some elements of it, the UCI wouldn't have been backed into the corner that has led it to launch this consultation.
I'd say that's justification enough?
Alright, alright Simon, before you ban me from posting ever again
But hey, assuming you're a BC member, you can now give feedback via the BC process
@bikeandy61 - Agreed. Stinks of a knee-jerk reaction that amounts to nothing more than lip service.
I don't think it's knee jerk, I think they're wetting themselves to get something out before the imminent Padova evidence is loosed.
Granted it is kind of hard from a logistical stand point to get fan input I feel that the media should have been included. Either way the deadline is short.
Oh bugger a load of people are trying to oust us, we'd better start doing our job and asking people what they want. But we'll just give them a week to sort it all out.
To me this shows exactly what sort of organisation the UCI are. React when you are threatened and sit smoking your fat cigar with a large brandy for 90% of the rest of the time.
Glad to see that the UCI are making every effort to sort cycling out and to restore its reputation as a glorious sport.
Sorry for those reading if you get hit by a thick slab of my sarcasm.
To be fair though, it is a conciliatory move of sorts. Shame it is not conscientiously trying to move cycling forward and needs a cattle prod of attention focused on it to do so.
Seems like any reformation would most likely come about because of the independent commission's recommendations anyway.
Anyone with any evidence (that still excludes most journalists, I guess) can submit it to the commission via email here: http://www.uciic.org/ before the end of the year.