" uciic " ? Gone ?

[Grandillusion]

Any legal eagles able to throw light on how much serious pressure can be brought to bear on the UCI by the IC? It's all very well Otton & Tanni huffing & puffing, but McQuaid doesn't sound very worried to me, and there appears to be no available sanction for the UCI's flagrant contempt re. Document provision for instance.

 

[hrotha]

What I don't get is why the UCI set up a truly independent commission, knowing fully well that its findings would be devastating. Did they hope they could control them? Did they plan to stall them like they're doing until they just ceased to exist?

 

[Huckleberry]

Wow, this is like watching a Monty Python skit....before you know it McQuaid will show up in a dress and sing the Lumberjack song.......

 

[the asian]

What I don't get is why the UCI set up a truly independent commission, knowing fully well that its findings would be devastating. Did they hope they could control them? Did they plan to stall them like they're doing until they just ceased to exist?

What the UCI normally does doesn't make sense.

A miscalculation on the part of Pat & Hein.

 

[peterst6906]

What I don't get is why the UCI set up a truly independent commission, knowing fully well that its findings would be devastating. Did they hope they could control them? Did they plan to stall them like they're doing until they just ceased to exist?

Normally organisations/governments/agencies only set up inquiries into their behaviour when the outcome is already known.

I think there is a bit of evidence emerging that the UCI is finding out that the independent commission is a little too independent for their liking. I guess that in setting up the commission, paying for its existence and activities, signing off on its terms of reference and defining how long this should take, the UCI were expecting the commission to be a well behaved pet.

Good to see that's not the case and that the commissioners haven't bowed to UCI attempts so far to redirect control of the process.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

What I don't get is why the UCI set up a truly independent commission, knowing fully well that its findings would be devastating. Did they hope they could control them? Did they plan to stall them like they're doing until they just ceased to exist?

It's pretty clear the UCI were going to strangle this with legalize.
That's why the the terms of reference were important and why WADA, CCN etc raised concerns.

The UCI will say that it will give all documents in public, yet in the terms they reserve the right to with hold certain information.
The whole thing was designed by UCI (Hein/Pat) as a delaying tactic, and that any subsequent report would be so watered down it could be impossible to give firm conclusions and come up with solutions.

 

[mewmewmew13]

Thank-you.

Excellent post. Who said the Clinic is the Asylum?

we are leading edge here....


btw it will get interesting wont it...

 

[thehog]

we are leading edge here....


btw it will get interesting wont it...

Not sure it will.

UCI will do what they do best. Nothing. Then stall a little, then do nothing again.

They're very good at it....

 

[sniper]

Not sure it will.

UCI will do what they do best. Nothing. Then stall a little, then do nothing again.

They're very good at it....

well indeed. and the peloton is very good at endulging it.

look at Jérémy Roy's open letter.

excellent letter, but not a bad word on UCI.

on the other hand, i was positively surprised to hear Wiggins spank Pat in public.

if the peloton had voting right, I wonder how many protour riders would vote for or against continuation under the current UCI.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Not sure it will.

UCI will do what they do best. Nothing. Then stall a little, then do nothing again.

They're very good at it....

Nope.
That's what they normally do, and what Hein/Pat want to do, nothing.
But the UCI is under so much pressure their own management committee are becoming rebellious. Usually P&H could keep them in check but with CCN, UCIIC etc then they cannot do much in private.

To be frank, I fully expected the UCIIC to quit today or offer an ultimatum - but they gave the UCI just a little more time.

 

[bianchigirl]

It seems that Pat's idea of an 'independent' commission and the commision's view of being independent are poles apart - perhaps because Pat expected his own Vrijman report.

Nice thing is they've done all this ****wittery in public - wonder if that's what the UCI IC had in mind - exposing the total lack of co-operation from UCI? Seems the UCI couldn't provide them because it was too much expense - guess they blew their cash on shredders instead

 

[thehog]

It seems that Pat's idea of an 'independent' commission and the commision's view of being independent are poles apart - perhaps because Pat expected his own Vrijman report.

Nice thing is they've done all this ****wittery in public - wonder if that's what the UCI IC had in mind - exposing the total lack of co-operation from UCI? Seems the UCI couldn't provide them because it was too much expense - guess they blew their cash on shredders instead

They learnt well from USADA. Make it public the whole way. What the UCI did today is what they've been doing behind closed doors for years. Now the world is seeing it because its public and it relates to Armstrong.

 

[Grandillusion]

Brailsford has made a statement saying he doesn't believe a Truth & Reconciliation process is needed. Is he trying to help the UCI or scared of what may come out?

 

[Franklin]

But the UCI is under so much pressure their own management committee are becoming rebellious.

Now this is me in tinfoil modus, as I'm not sure of the current stance of the National unions. Perhaps something has recently changed what I'm not aware of:

My impression is that the National Unions don't really want to pursue this. If we look at the KNWB and BWB we see only extremely belatedly some research into the ton of rumours that have been around since Festina.

The fact that Rabo wasn't dismantled after it's management was involved in whereabouts fraud is shocking. The Belgians are belatedly researching Leinders, but they have been okay with Ibarguen at Lotto. For that matter, when Boonen all those years ago in a public outburst admitted almost everyone used Epo there was enough grounds to turn Quickstep inside out.

We know the Spanish Union doesn't cooperate or largely feels powerless.

The French have a lot of rethorics, but Dr. Menuet is still with a team.

Besides USADA I can only think of the Italians who are remotely anti doping.

Every other union is acting rather reluctantly if acting at all.

 

[northstar]

For reference

UCI IC statement January 25, 2013

USA Cycling statement January 25, 2013

CN article January 25, 2013

 

[northstar]

Seems the UCI couldn't provide them because it was too much expense - guess they blew their cash on shredders instead

haha. the CN article refers to 16 binders of documents. but there's probably 2 pages in each binder!

 

[Morbius]

The delay in providing the 16 binders to the UCIIC was a big issue at the hearing. Eventually the UCI lawyers were effectively forced to promise to hand them over "today".

My take is that the UCIIC effectively were holding a gun to the heads of the UCI because of the implicit threat of resigning if the UCI did not agree to some form of T&R or some other ways to get WADA etc involved. The UCI tried to neutralise that threat by asking the UCIIC to stop work, and the UCIIC responded by refusing.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Now this is me in tinfoil modus, as I'm not sure of the current stance of the National unions. Perhaps something has recently changed what I'm not aware of:

My impression is that the National Unions don't really want to pursue this. If we look at the KNWB and BWB we see only extremely belatedly some research into the ton of rumours that have been around since Festina.

The fact that Rabo wasn't dismantled after it's management was involved in whereabouts fraud is shocking. The Belgians are belatedly researching Leinders, but they have been okay with Ibarguen at Lotto. For that matter, when Boonen all those years ago in a public outburst admitted almost everyone used Epo there was enough grounds to turn Quickstep inside out.

We know the Spanish Union doesn't cooperate or largely feels powerless.

The French have a lot of rethorics, but Dr. Menuet is still with a team.

Besides USADA I can only think of the Italians who are remotely anti doping.

Every other union is acting rather reluctantly if acting at all.

The reason why I say they (Hein/Pat) are under pressure from the management Committee (MgtCm) is that when it was last convened it was the MgtCm got Pat/Hein to drop their lawsuit against Kimmage.
That was big - because only a few days before Pat was adamant it would continue.

It was also the MgtCm idea to set up the UCIIC in the first place.

Previous to this P&H had control and could delay & dilute things enough and keep the troops happy - now they are all under scrutiny and the MgtCm getting vocal.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Besides USADA I can only think of the Italians who are remotely anti doping.

Every other union is acting rather reluctantly if acting at all.

Just to be clear, it's USADA actually doing their job. They accomplished an enormous win despite institutionalized weakness for anti-doping anything inside the IOC/Cycling.

USA Cycling is run by Thom Wiesel who has mulitfactor doping allegations (he doped, his teams had doping doctors) following him around since his hostile takeover of USA Cycling. The federation at the executive level is the "never tested positive" kind of anti-doping.

 

[DirtyWorks]

The delay in providing the 16 binders to the UCIIC was a big issue at the hearing. Eventually the UCI lawyers were effectively forced to promise to hand them over "today".

My take is that the UCIIC effectively were holding a gun to the heads of the UCI because of the implicit threat of resigning if the UCI did not agree to some form of T&R or some other ways to get WADA etc involved. The UCI tried to neutralise that threat by asking the UCIIC to stop work, and the UCIIC responded by refusing.

Again, thank you. This is very helpful first-hand information.

 

[DirtyWorks]

Brailsford has made a statement saying he doesn't believe a Truth & Reconciliation process is needed. Is he trying to help the UCI or scared of what may come out?

Yes and Yes.

I personally believe he's got some 2012 Sky Grand Tour skeletons in a closet that he does not want exposed.

 

[Morbius]

I haven't read the Brailsford comments yet, but there is a more practical difficulty for him with an amnesty.

If a rider or staff member confessess in front of a T&R commission, whether for doping offences before or during their time at sky, it will be morally impossible for Sky to fire them.

 

[hrotha]

Yes and Yes.

I personally believe he's got some 2012 Sky Grand Tour skeletons in a closet that he does not want exposed.

Personally, I doubt any recent doping would come to light in a T&R process. I expect lots of info about the 90s and first half of the 00s, but that's all. Unless the people who have been busted recently decide to cooperate fully, that is.

 

[Morbius]

One other topic this reminded me about.

The terms of T&R were discussed but not in any detail. USADA has proposed a process in a letter to the UCI, and UCI does not object to the proposed process in general. In a somewhat farcical session, the Ian UCI lawyer read out the letter from USADA paragraph by paragraph and then gave his opinion on it. He clearly had not been prepared to comment on the letter in advance. At one point Malcolm Holmes said he would not wish to embarrass the lawyer by asking him to comment if he hadn't read the letter previously!

UCI said it will present its own proposals to WADA on an amnesty by no later than the start of next week. However before any T&R process can start, there will need to be formal agreement and rule changes by the WADA Foundation and also potentially by all national anti-drug agencies and possibly also the national cycling federations. It will clearly take quite a while for the terms of this to be thrashed out.

 

[Dear Wiggo]

It seems that Pat's idea of an 'independent' commission and the commision's view of being independent are poles apart - perhaps because Pat expected his own Vrijman report.

Nice thing is they've done all this ****wittery in public - wonder if that's what the UCI IC had in mind - exposing the total lack of co-operation from UCI? Seems the UCI couldn't provide them because it was too much expense - guess they blew their cash on shredders instead

Just how much does it cost to open a filing cabinet drawer and search for the letter B for Bribes, K for kickbacks and W for WTF!?