Pat McQuaid writes on the interesting life times of fellow former UCI president Hein Verbruggen; including his role in creating the Nissan Classic and his Irish holiday home.
Hein Verbruggen: An appreciation by Pat McQuaid
Having been friends for more than 30 years and both been UCI president, Pat McQuaid was mentored by Hein Verbruggen and grew close to him.
He remembers a man he believes will be judged by cycling historians as the UCI’s best ever president.
By Pat McQuaid
I first met Hein Verbruggen in 1984 when I was lobbying for a new Irish stage race, the Nissan International Classic, to be put on the FICP professional calendar and to get a good ranking.
It was at the World Championships in Barcelona and the calendar was being finalised that week.
He assured me of his support at the meeting and likewise another FICP board member, the Scot Arthur Campbell, assured support.
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This was very important to me at the time because the French controlled the calendar to some extent at that time.
They were loath to allow any races from outside the traditional cycling nations to have a credible place on the calendar.
We achieved what we wanted. We were given a good slot in mid September, just two weeks before the World Championships.
So we figured we could make the race a good preparation event for the Worlds and, as such, attract a lot of the world’s top professional riders.
The first event in 1985 was a huge success. And news of this new race and the Irish welcome reverberated in the cycling fraternity throughout Europe.
In 1986 I invited Hein, as president of FICP, to follow a stage and he accepted.
He spent a day in my race director’s car during which we spoke about our vision for the sport.
He was interested in my family background in cycling and indeed my philosophy towards sport as I was, at that time, a physical education teacher in Dublin.
A friendship started that day which endured for over 30 years.
He had a particular fondness for Ireland and indeed purchased a holiday home in Glengarriff.
And he would be seen regularly on the roads around the Healy Pass on his bike when he took a break from politics.
Some years after that when he saw that I had been organising races as far afield as the Tour de Langkawi in Malaysia and Marlboro Tour in the Philippines he encouraged me to seek election on to the UCI board.
I was successful and at our first board meeting he appointed me president of the UCI Road Commission.
It was probably the most important commission within UCI. I was honoured and thrilled to get this opportunity.
The commission oversaw junior, U23 and women's road racing; everything except elite professional cycling.
The move from my career as a PE teacher into the sport, I felt, was a perfect fit, and I enjoyed the next eight years developing our sport throughout the world.
I obviously got to know Hein very well during that time.
As I sat on the UCI board throughout those eight years I found him to be very businesslike, extremely intelligent, articulate and an inspiring leader.
I was involved in many discussions on all aspects of cycling, including, of course doping.
Whenever presentations were made to the board by Hein, or by a member of staff, he allowed a full discussion on the topic before asking for agreement to go ahead.
To judge Hein you must try to consider what our sport was like when he became involved in the early 80’s.
It was split in two - amateur and professional - each with its own executive board.
The amateur FIAC was controlled by the Eastern Europeans from the communist era and they had access to the Olympic Games.
The professional FICP board was made up of people from the main cycling nations. Each had its own calendar and its own set of rules.
Then you had the UCI which was a small umbrella organisation which basically organised the World Championships every year.
The Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch was IOC president and he declared that he wanted the best athletes in the world in the Olympic Games.
Hein saw this as an opportunity to bring the cycling world together.
This was achieved in 1992 when FIAC and FICP disbanded and together formed the ‘new’ UCI. Hein was elected UCI president.
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This was a major achievement because people who had been sitting in various positions for many years had to give them up and only a certain number got elected on to the UCI board.
So Hein closed down the three offices in different parts of Europe and moved the UCI, with three personnel, to a rented office in Lausanne.
He built UCI from there, starting with negative equity, to today, having some 14m Swiss Francs in reserve.
It has a wonderful head office and World Cycling Centre in Aigle with over 100 staff.
He created a new constitution and created bodies to represent the different stakeholder groups, which had never been there before; the AIGCP (teams), AIOCC (organisers), CPA, (riders).
He created commissions to look after the different aspects of the sport. He started putting order on professional contracts, which at the time were uncontrolled.
Contracts involved a lot of ‘black’ money, meaning part of the rider’s contract was legitimate with another part being paid in cash, under the counter so to speak.
He instituted a pension plan for riders.
It was in 1998 when Hein started the discussion on the board about UCI building its World Cycling Centre.
Initially the board agreed that a research study should be instituted.
So Hein along with UCI financial controller Jean-Pierre Strebel set about putting together a project, involving architects, local authorities and so on.
A presentation was made to the UCI board which had three options in different parts of Switzerland and a cost of roughly 20m Swiss francs.
This 20m was to come from a variety of sources including UCI, IOC, Swiss Confederation, local authorities and Aigle, the town where it was to be built.
Financially it looked feasible but there were several on the board who were reluctant to take the leap of faith and feared UCI could end up in a dire financial situation.
However, after a long discussion the sceptics accepted and it got unanimous support and the venue of Aigle was selected.
It was a very proud Hein Verbruggen who, along with his friend Juan Antonio Samaranch, officially opened the World Cycling Centre on April 14th, 2002.
Present were all of the greats of cycling over the years; Merckx, Hinault, Kelly, Roche, Zoetemelk, Indurain and many others.
This is indeed Hein’s greatest legacy to cycling. Since its opening cyclists from over 100 countries have passed through its doors on training programmes.
Likewise it organises training programmes in many areas of cycling such as commissaires, mechanics, team directors and so on.
It is a wonderful location for the staff of UCI who on a daily basis, whilst they work on their different disciplines, can witness athletes training in those disciplines.
Hein had a public persona which is completely at odds with the reality of the man.
Yes he approached UCI in a businesslike fashion and ran it like a company. But he would argue that in order to get things done it must be that way.
If you constantly look for consensus you never make progress.
He loved his cycling and loved his UCI. He could laugh and joke as good as anybody. He supported me in difficult times when we were at ‘war’ with ASO.
We would often discuss the situation over the phone, we would examine the various options.
And then he would say: “Okay Pat those are your options. It’s up to you to make a decision. I leave that with you. I’m off to have a little glass of Irish whiskey and suggest you do the same when you are finished.”
He was a very proud man and this is reflected in the way he defended himself regularly when he believed people misrepresented the situation, and made untrue accusations against him and/or UCI. The fact is that he won those cases and appeals.
The same is true of the CIRC which he felt was politically motivated and he presented extensive evidence on his website contradicting elements in that report.
It is very easy to say what should have been done with the benefit of 20 years of hindsight.
But you have to consider what options were available to UCI at that time to enable them to decide strategies.
Likewise on accusations of corruption; it is easy for a whistleblower to come out with a statement that UCI hid this or that but the evidence proves otherwise.
Many refuse to accept the evidence because it gets in the way of a good story.
He was also a great family man, of strong catholic beliefs. He had two sons and in recent years enjoyed spending time with them and his four grandchildren.
Our sport has lost a great leader. In my opinion history will show that Hein Verbruggen was the greatest president the UCI ever had.
Hein Verbruggen was buried in the town of Lasne, Belgium, on Wednesday 21st June, 2017. It was the day he would have celebrated his 76th birthday.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam - may his soul be on God’s right hand side.
Pat McQuaid
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