Not content with the UCI’s assurances that they are to appoint an independent commission to examine their actions relating to Lance Armstrong, a number of key players in the global media have leant their voices to calls for reform to clean up cycling.
Major newspapers – among them, L’Equipe, The Times, Gazzetta dello Sport, Het Nieuwsblad and Le Soir – backed by smaller titles, have published what they term a ‘manifesto for credible cycling’ in which they demand a number of major reforms.
The move will put pressure on the UCI and should reduce any comfort zone for the world governing body that might be expected to develop in the months ahead when then heat goes out of recent events and the new season starts early next year.
The manifesto is made all the more significant given the identities of some of the newspapers leading the campaign.
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L’Equipe is owned by the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO), which also runs the Tour de France. ASO also has a small stage in the company that owns the Vuelta a España.
La Gazzetta dello Sport is owned by RCS Sport, which also owns the Giro d’Italia. Het Nieuwsblad sponsors the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Tour of Flanders.
The new manifesto questions the credibility of the UCI, suggesting it has been found to be impotent in the fight against doping and saying figures like some team managers have been, and still are, involved in the doping problems within the sport.
It says:
The confessions by many of Armstrong’s former teammates, the shocking US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) report that revealed how deeply dysfunctional cycling had become, and the impotence of the International Cycling Union (UCI) are soon to be followed by the Padua investigation in Italy and, in January, the Operación Puerto trial in Spain.
The manifesto continues:
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The media shares some responsibility for this malaise. Some have battled the evils of doping, but others have not done enough. It is clear that in future we will need to be more vigilant, to ask tougher questions. But the principal responsibility lies with all those within the sport of cycling — governing bodies, sponsors, team managers, race promoters and athletes.
While accepting the culture appears to be changing of late, it makes a number of demands:
• The creation of an independent and neutral commission, under the responsibility of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), to investigate the role of the UCI in the Armstrong affair and to report on any mistakes, abuses of power or complicity by the governing body.
• Drug testing structures on all professional cycling events should, from now on, be instigated by Wada and administered by the national anti-doping agencies.
• Penalties for doping offenses should become more severe; professional teams should not employ riders suspended for more than six months for a supplementary period of two years.
• The universal acceptance among all teams that a rider implicated by a formal doping investigation is automatically withdrawn from competition, pending the outcome of that investigation.
• The clear understanding of shared responsibility among all sponsors for the ethical health of cycling and for the credibility of the teams that carry their name.
• The reform of the World Tour of leading races, of its systems of points and the awarding of team licenses, which encourages a closed shop, lacking in transparency and accountability; we propose that team licences are awarded to sponsors and not to team managers.
• The publication by the UCI of an annual report clarifying, in a transparent manner, all its activities and progress achieved each season.
• The undertaking that all of the above will be in place before the start of the 2013 season in order to establish a new and more credible structure and new governance and regulations.
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