McQuaid defends UCI’s role as Tour of Beijing looms

UCI president Pat McQuaid defended cycling’s governing body’s move into event promotion and argued that next week’s Tour of Beijing will give the UCI a stronger financial base for the future to promote its agenda.

The five-day Tour of Beijing, which begins Wednesday and runs through Sunday, breaks new ground for the UCI. The debut Chinese race marks the first time the UCI will be organizing an elite men’s professional bike race under its new commercial arm, Cycling Global Promotion.

Rather than oversee rules and regulations under its traditional role, the UCI will actually have a stake in the financial pie.

Some have suggested that represents a conflict of interest, but McQuaid insists it’s all part of the UCI’s larger mandate to promote cycling in non-traditional markets.

“Not in the least. The UCI is the regulating body of cycling and we will continue to do that, but one of our major roles is the development of the sport globally. We don’t see a conflict of interest,” McQuaid told VeloNews. “The UCI has a new commercial arm and one of its goal is to increase revenues for the UCI. We need money to promote the sport.”

The UCI created the Cycling Global Promotion in September, 2009, to promote the development of professional races in emerging markets, such as China and Russia, where the sport does not have the same historical roots as in Europe.

The Beijing tour is the first of what the UCI hopes will be more races where it stands to turn a profit, with McQuaid saying the UCI needs additional revenue streams.

“The UCI needs money on a continuing basis. We are not a private company, we don’t make much profits. And all the money we do make goes back into the sport,” McQuaid said. “We have no conflict of interest there. Any money we make goes back into the development of the sport.”

It’s not exactly clear where any subsequent profits would go. Cycling Global Promotion is registered as a separate legal entity, but controlled by the UCI.

It shares an address with the UCI’s headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland, and is directed by Alain Rumpf, a lawyer who formerly worked on the ProTour project who’s worked for the UCI since 1994. It’s not clear whether profits would be destined for the UCI’s general operating fund or be doled out to individuals within the group.

McQuaid’s comments to VeloNews suggest the money would be used for UCI-backed projects.

The Tour of Beijing has been clouded in controversy since last spring in the long-running battle between the UCI and many of the elite top pro teams over the race radio debate.

The teams threatened to boycott the Beijing tour because most want to continue to use race radios in the top professional races, something the UCI wanted to phase out entirely in all sanctioned races by the end of this year.

A final-hour compromise by the UCI to postpone a decision to possibly ban race radios at least until the 2013 season opened the door for the elite teams to bring their riders to China.

“We are hoping we can find a resolution over the next season. Our viewpoints are still the same: The teams still want race radio and the UCI thinks cycling will be better without radios,” McQuaid said. “An independent commission will discuss with all the stakeholders and toward the end of next year come up with a decision. It’s better to do it that way, because this has nothing to do with the Tour of Beijing.”

FILED UNDER: News / Road TAGS: Pat McQuaid / Tour of Beijing / UCI

Andrew Hood

Hood cut his journalistic teeth at Colorado dailies before the web boom opened the door to European cycling in the mid-1990s. Hood's covered every Tour since 1996 and has been VeloNews' European correspondent since 2002. He lives in Leon, Spain, when he's not chasing bike races.

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