Jay Rideout

Excellent... and it is why I'm glad I have OBRA as a next door neighbor. It's great to support an organization that considers the promotion of racing more important then the preservation of itself.

Candi Murray

The Explainer - Who are those guys?

By Charles Pelkey
Posted Apr. 29, 2009

Who gave the UCI its authority?
Dear Explainer,
My question is a combination of a rant and query. I just read about the
UCI's decision not to allow the Astana team to ride the Tour of the Gila and
it got me wondering. Who made them the boss? Under what authority are they
acting and who gave them that authority? These are the bozos who allowed
Graeme Obree to ride and then declared his bike wasn't "legal." LEGAL?!?! I
don't remember seeing anyone make a law.

What's more, where do WADA and USADA get the power to tell riders they can
or cannot ride for "doping violations?" I'm a Tyler Hamilton fan and was
disappointed when he retired, apparently because he violated some dumb-ass
rule about a drug that doesn't seem to have any benefit?

Who gave them the power to make decisions like that? I sure don't remember
voting.
Phillip Anderson
Wilmette, Illinois

Good day, Phillip,
Well it looks like someone here has a problem with authority, don't they?

Seriously, your letter raises some very interesting questions about the
history of governance in this and other sports. As you might already know,
the UCI - or USA Cycling or someone else with a keen (but selective) eye on
the rulebook - ruled that while Astana can't ride at Gila, three of its
riders may. But all of that maneuvering and juggling begs the next question,
namely (to quote one of my favorite old movies) "who are those guys?"

Well, it's not like the clouds parted one day and the ghost of Fausto Coppi
descended from the heavens, touched Hein Verbruggen's grandfather and
endowed him with the authority to rule cycling for eternity, but it's almost
like that. Instead of God or Fausto's ghost, there is - at least as far as
the sporting world is concerned - a far more powerful entity and that is
(cue heavenly choir) the International Olympic Committee.

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The quest for power
As appears to be the tradition in such matters, the UCI was created, at
least in part, because of a turf war with the old international governing
body, the International Cycling Association. The ICA itself had emerged from
a British-based governing body, the National Cyclists Union, the progeny of
something else known as the Bicycle Union. So, to summarize, the Bicycle
Union begat the National Cyclists Union, which begat the ICA, which sorta
begat the UCI. All of that begetting began before the turn of the last
century and, to make a long story short, the UCI emerged from the rubble in
1900, when the national governing bodies of Italy, Switzerland, France,
Belgium and, yes, the United States, formed a group in opposition to the
ICA.

The rogue breakaway group played its politics quite well and soon earned the
blessings of the IOC, itself a relatively new organization that had emerged
from its own rather convoluted turf wars. (Seriously, if you are at all into
this stuff, the record of competing sports organizations at that time reads
almost like a history of the Russian revolution, with a host of ad hoc
alliances all fighting for primacy in what ultimately became a super-power
in the world of sports.)

The UCI quickly set about consolidating its position, naming Belgian Emile
de Beukelaer as its first president. Within three years, the British - who
had allied themselves with the declining fortunes of the ICA - came to Paris
on their knees, presumably kissing De Beukelaer's ring and the UCI's
take-over of the sport was pretty much complete.

In the ensuing years, the UCI moved its headquarters to Lausanne,
Switzerland, probably to be closer to the corridors of IOC power, where it
solidified its role as the governing body of road and track racing, later
assuming control of cyclocross, mountain bike racing, BMX and even some
truly odd variants of the sport known as "cycle ball" and "artistic
cycling."

Back in 2004, the UCI left Lausanne for new - and much fancier - digs in
nearby Aigle. It's a nice place, complete with a velodrome and dormitories
for riders invited to train at the UCI's World Cycling Center. If you're
ever in the neighborhood, it really is worth checking out.

Politburo or parliament?
With the full power of the IOC behind them, the masters of the UCI can
pretty much craft rules as they see fit. While the UCI management committee
is a purportedly democratic organization, composed of representatives from
around the world, it really is run more like a politburo than a parliament.
Many of the major decisions are made behind closed doors, often well in
advance of the committee meetings, and the process leaves little room for
debate.

Personally, I like rules, especially when it comes to sporting events.
Governing bodies, too, are a necessary evil, if for no other reason than to
provide consistency. The problems arise when politics, money, egos and other
factors come into play and some rules are enforced to the letter and others
are not. In a lot of ways, the UCI does a pretty good job, although that
whole Hein Verbruggen-created ProTour debacle was - to put it charitably -
somewhat ill-conceived.

The Olympic movement is something of the 800-pound gorilla when it comes to
sport. Without its blessings, governing bodies are either ignored and an
IOC-sanctioned counterpart runs the show, or the sport is simply excluded
from the Games. Of course, in the case of some sports, they do just fine
without the IOC. The United States' National Football League, Major League
Baseball and the National Basketball Association operate independently - and
quite profitably - outside the auspices of the Olympic movement.

Lest you think I've overstated the Machiavellian character of the IOC, I
would recommend a very interesting look at the politics of the organization,
in Andrew Jennings' and Vyv Simpson's book "The Lords of the Rings: Power,
Money and Drugs in the Modern Olympics." Indeed, I believe there is now a
sequel to that 1992 edition, but I haven't read it.

Here in the U.S., the organization which - via the UCI - has been blessed by
the IOC, is that organization we all know and love as "USA Cycling." The
history of that august body rivals that of the UCI. For an admittedly biased
- but intelligent and fascinating - view of some of those battles, visit Les
Earnest's archive of his old Cyclops USA newsletter. It makes for
interesting reading.

The dope cops
Now, to your final question, Phillip. How did WADA get its authority? Well,
where else? From the IOC, of course.

Remarkably, however, the World Anti-Doping Agency was created when the IOC
admitted that it was incapable of handling both sports governance and the
conflicting responsibility of anti-doping enforcement.

As you might recall, the whole thing was caused by the revelation that
cycling had a drug problem. I know, we were shocked, too. Back in 1998, when
the French police stopped the Tour de France-issued Fiat wagon driven by
Festina soigneur Willy Voet and found it to be loaded with enough medical
supplies to stock a small hospital, we saw the beginning of what came to be
known as L'Affaire Festina, the scandal that nearly stopped the Tour in its
tracks.

The following February, after then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch made
some really boneheaded statements about what does and does not constitute
doping, the organization held what appeared to be a PR-driven conference on
the subject. This time, possibly due to some heavy behind-the-scenes
politicking, the IOC admitted the error of its ways and handed all of its
anti-doping duties off to an independent organization, the newly created
World Anti-Doping Agency.

Indeed, a lot of us who were at that first conference greeted the move with
skepticism. It was, after all, to be headed by an IOC vice president, Dick
Pound from Canada. What we didn't really consider was the fact that Pound,
once regarded as Samaranch's heir-apparent, had been passed over for
consideration as IOC president. No matter what you think of the guy, Pound
did succeed in drawing a bright line of separation from the IOC. He has
managed to anger many - if not most - of the above-mentioned "Lords of the
Rings," most notably former UCI president Hein Verbruggen (which, to be
completely honest, provided many of us with a great deal of entertainment).

WADA - and its national counterparts, like the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency -
operate quite separately from the Olympic movement. I personally think that
Pound deserves a lot of the credit for that. The post-Festina world really
did require someone to make it clear that that the two functions -
governance and anti-doping regulation - were distinctly separate. While
Pound's approach of speaking loudly and carrying a big stick may have rubbed
many the wrong way, I don't think you can accuse the guy of being an IOC
puppet during his tenure.

While independent, the agencies do still manage to wield the power of the
IOC, in that they get much of their authority from the fact that the
governing bodies have been forced to sign on to the World Anti-Doping Code
and governments around the world - under threat of never being able to host
an Olympic or world championship event - have signed on to an international
treaty known as the "International Convention Against Doping in Sport."

As for the list of drugs on the banned list, the selection is governed by
WADA, with input from WADA-funded research into performance-enhancement.
While Dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) itself may be of dubious
performance-enhancing value, it is among a list of substances that qualify
as testosterone precursors. The rules clearly state that any of those are
banned if they are found to have come from exogenous sources. In Hamilton's
case, the test showed that he tested positive "for testosterone or its
precursors," a point he conceded when he announced his retirement.

So there you have it, Phillip, a thumbnail sketch of where these guys get
their authority. They have that authority . well, because the IOC said so.
Candi