UCI Blackmail teams to ride in Beijing?

[Anonymous]

Reported yesterday by Velocast
http://velocastcc.squarespace.com/comment/2011/10/4/corruption-at-the-heart-of-the-uci.html

And followed up today by Inrng
http://inrng.com/2011/10/uci-sponsor-letters-warning/

and Velonation
http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/9...-and-UCI-advise-caution-over-Clenbuterol.aspx

going to be very interesting if the letter surfaces.

In his letter Mr. McQuaid threatens to inform the very highest reaches of the Chinese authorities that the event was to be boycotted. He warned that the Chinese government would take personal offence to this action and that the sponsors’ commercial interests may be damaged in what would no doubt be a valuable and lucrative market…

…Furthermore, McQuaid assures the team sponsor, failing to appear at the start line in Beijing would result in a summons from the UCI Licence Commision where the team could lose their race licence and the benefits associated with this.

edit: I see this is being discussed in the clinic
http://forum.cyclingnews.com/showthread.php?t=15417
not a doping story though. Which section shall we continue the talk in?

 

[William H]

It's a Pro Tour race, they're obliged to ride, so the bit about the risk to their license is certainly valid.

And pointing out a potential negative reaction from China is fairly reasonable, though if he's suggesting he would be personally encouraging such a reaction that would be problematic.

 

[Moncoutie]

Nielsa has just posted a tweet By Andrew Talanksy regarding this in the general news thread, calling out McQuiad!

 

[Ragerod]

It's a Pro Tour race, they're obliged to ride, so the bit about the risk to their license is certainly valid.

And pointing out a potential negative reaction from China is fairly reasonable, though if he's suggesting he would be personally encouraging such a reaction that would be problematic.

It's a ProTour race so they are obliged but not doing shouldn't be a risk to their license when the UCI already has a three-strikes rule and should merely result in a fine. The problem here is that the UCI has made the assignment of WT licenses deliberately ambiguous meaning they can affectively assign them as they wish and not attending a race could hinder a teams application.

Pointing out that not attending would be inconvenient if the sponsors have ambitions in China is fine but the UCI has allegedly said that the Chinese Government would take personal offence which implies all sorts of things.

Finally the race is run by a private UCI company that has McQuaid and, I assume, other UCI officials as shareholders, which is a conflict of interest and an abuse of power for their own personal profit.