Pat McQuaid believes he will win the UCI presidential vote in Florence on Friday and take a third term in office. He says the result should be accepted by Brian Cookson, rather than be legally challenged.
Just three days before world cycling votes to decide if he or Brian Cookson will lead the UCI for the next four years, Ireland’s Pat McQuaid has said he would accept the result without legal challenge and has urged his opponent to do the same.
McQuaid must take 22 of the 42 votes on offer to win a third term and has told the Press Association Sport he is confident he will win. However, he has said the process should not be drawn out into a protracted legal battle after the vote.
“I would hope that the vote would bring an end to all that,” he said.
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“I know if I lose I certainly won’t be looking to make a legal challenge. I’d walk away. I would hope my opponent would do the same.”
“I do have a lot of support from within the sport itself, but I’m not going around listing names every day of people who are supporting me. I’ve enough to be doing to continue my job in running the UCI than looking for endorsements, or whatever.”
Of the European Cycling Union’s decision the weekend before last to vote against him, he said: “It wasn’t a big surprise to me, because one of his supporters is Igor Makarov, the Russian oligarch (president of the Russian Cycling Federation and member of the UCI management committee).”
“He carries a lot of influence within the European federations. He also provided Europe with a one million Euro sponsorship deal some months ago. I think his influence was brought to bear.”
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Asked whether he expects some of the European federations to change their vote in his favour in Friday's secret ballot, McQuaid said: “We’ll have to wait and see. I wouldn’t speculate on that.”
Tour de France legend Bernard Hinault has said in recent days that two terms should be enough for any president, but 64-year-old Dubliner McQuaid believes he has work still to do.
“I want to tidy it up and then at the end of the four years to step away. You need to develop relationships with your federations, 175 federations, you need to visit them, meet with their governments and ministers and develop relationships with them, in order to ask them to help develop the sport in the country."
“You’re there to create relationships with your other international colleagues, with WADA (the World Anti-doping Agency), with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and various bodies and that all takes time. You’ve got another term to continue to develop the sport and utilise the relationships you have.”
He said there had already been great strides to change the doping culture and that more would be achieved in time.
“We’re in a programme of doing it and there’s a lot of evidence that the sport is cleaning up; it’s a lot cleaner than it was when I came into it. The culture change takes a bit more time and that’s work that is ongoing.”
“That’s all work that is going to take another two or three years. That’s on top of the testing and biological passport and all those things. That’s why I want this last four years to do that and it will only be four years. I will definitely be stepping down at the end of that time.”
The presidential vote takes place at the UCI congress at the World Championships in Florence on Friday morning and the result should be known by lunchtime.
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