The feud between the UCI and ASO is reaching a critical level putting the racers and teams in a Catch-22 situation. If the teams do not participate in this weekend's ASO event, Paris-Nice, they feel they are risking not getting invited to the Tour de France. However, if they do participate, the UCI is threatening heavy fines, six months suspension from any UCI-sanctioned event and exclusion from competing at the upcoming Olympics. I would hate to be a rider or team boss right now. This is definitely a no-win situation.

As I have said in previous blogs, I think the UCI are the bad guys here. Frankly, I haven't seen them do anything but give lip service over the past few years. One thing that is clear to me. The UCI is more concerned about self-preservation than it is about promoting cycling. Let's look at their track record.

After the debacle at last year's Tour de France the UCI vowed to step up the fight against doping by conducting 500 out-of-competition tests. They only conducted twenty(20) out-of-competition tests making it pretty evident to me that they are not that concerned about fighting doping in the sport. When Operacion Puerto first came out in 2006, the UCI had the opportunity to nip the scandal in the bud by providing DNA samples of all riders to the Spanish prosecutors. The UCI chose not to cooperate and Operacion Puerto has hung over the sport like a black cloud ever since. Thanks.

The UCI has warned the teams and riders that if they ride Paris-Nice and under the sanction of the French Cycling Federation that their rights as riders will be severely limited and they could be tossed out of a race at anytime for suspected bad behavior.  I find this argument from the UCI very ironic. The UCI has had a history of disregarding riders rights some notable examples are releasing a number of doping positives, including Floyd Landis, to the public before due process had been carried out.

As far as tossing riders from races, the UCI stripped Danilo DiLuca of his 2007 Pro Tour points which cost him the overall Pro Tour title because of a sanction for a situation that occurred in 2004. How is it fair to strip somebody of a title they are winning in 2007 for something which happened in 2004? Also, the UCI sat idly by and let the race organizers of the Amgen Tour of California prohibit three riders from Rock Racing from starting based on supposed open doping investigations for which we have seen no documentation to support. How is that fair?

So, basically, I don't have much faith in the UCI to do anything right.  That doesn't mean that ASO is a knight in shining armor, but compared to the track record laid down by the UCI, I will take ASO over the UCI any day.  Clearly, the UCI has lost the plot and they don't seem to be close to finding it anytime soon. The result of all of this posturing is that professional cycling, which is teetering on the brink after all the recent doping scandals is on even more unstable footing. The UCI needs to go back to promoting the sport and stop trying to fatten their wallets.

Bruce

ps - now for some good news. I had a great ride in the hills above Silicon Valley today. Just a jersey and shorts and I was going fast enough up the climbs to actually feel some wind on my face. Being sick sucks and being really sick really sucks!