LONDON, (Reuters) – Cycling has a long way to go to repair the damage done to the sport by the Lance Armstrong case, International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid said following the publication of the UCI’s stakeholder consultation.
A summary of the findings by Deloitte identified six “critically-important recommendations” and a further five “high priority” ones, including restoring cycling’s credibility, improving relations with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and strengthening the anti-doping culture in the sport.
“We need to acknowledge that there’s a lot that the UCI needs to do to repair the damage caused to our sport after the Armstrong affair,” McQuaid told Reuters in a telephone interview from Geneva yesterday.
“We didn’t set out to find a report which was going to be a whitewash and we obviously expected that there were going to be some criticisms,” he added.
“The UCI are already working on some of the high-priority recommendations, such as increasing the independence of the cycling anti-doping foundation, the points system for the pro-teams and the calendar.”
McQuaid thought the consultation findings, which will be discussed by the UCI management committee next month, were just the start of a rebuilding process for the sport as the governing body struggles to placate critics who feel it did not do enough to catch Armstrong.
The UCI plans to set up an external audit of itself and its work during the Armstrong period.
“That independent audit into the UCI should clarify a lot of the issues which are still, in people’s minds, doubtful,” said the Irishman.
“We would hope that will then ensure the public and the cycling family in particular has faith in the fact that any decision the UCI took concerning Armstrong, or indeed any other rider, was taken in compliance with the known facts, with the science available at the time and according to the rules applicable at the time.
