Friday 07, Dec 2012
LeMond To Run For UCI Presidency
LeMond To Run For UCI Presidency
After a series of doping scandals in cycling, three-time Tour de France champion Greg LeMond is to run for president of the International Cycling Union (UCI).
LeMond, who won the Tour in 1986, 1989, and 1990, told the French daily Le Monde that he was ready to run for UCI president in 2013 and remarked that we want to change cycling with the Change Cycling Now movement. The cyclist is a part of Change Cycling Now, a lobby group set up by former riders, journalists, and a sponsor who all look to radically change the way the sport is ruled in the wake of the Lance Armstrong scandal. The 41-year-old Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles after the United States Anti-Doping Agency accused him of being at the center of an organized doping conspiracy. Meanwhile, current UCI president Pat McQuaid has said he is seeking a third term.
LeMond has been in a long-running feud with the disgraced rider and is now the only American to have won the Tour. The 51-year-old LeMond said in 2001 that he was “disappointed” with Armstrong’s working relationship with the Italian doctor Michele Ferrari at both the US Postal and Discovery Channel teams. LeMond added that Armstrong could repair some of the damage inflicted on the sport by coming forward and providing an insight into his alleged misdemeanors and further added that would be one redeeming thing he could do for cycling, because he’s done a lot of damage.
The alleged complicity of the UCI with doping has resulted in widespread calls for McQuaid and the honorary president, Hein Verbruggen, to step down.
Change Cycling Now, formed by the Australian businessman Jaimie Fuller, has received support from former riders, journalists, and the blood doping expert Michael Ashenden. Ashenden, who said the World Anti-Doping Agency agreed in principle with the idea, is of the view that the changes, if implemented, would remove any doubt over the legitimacy of future Tour winners.
LeMond while addressing the 13 other members of the panel attending the first day of the summit said he and [former rider] Eric Boyer called for independent doping back in 2008 and the Amaury Sports Organisation [operators of the Tour de France] were all for it, but unfortunately, the UCI was not.
A few weeks ago, the governing body of cycling announced that an independent panel consisting of the judge Sir Philip Otton, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, and the barrister Malcolm Holmes would be examining the issues that emerged from the damning US Anti-Doping Agency report into the Armstrong affair, which said that he led “the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen”. Change Cycling Now believes a fresh approach is required immediately as the panel’s findings are due next June and said the movement has laid out a charter for change that would see the formation of a truth and reconciliation commission and rejection of a zero-tolerance response to doping, giving riders two years to come forward and provide any details of offenses.
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Tags: doping scandals in cycling, Greg LeMond, Lance Armstrong scandal
Posted in Steroids and Anabolic Steroids, Steroids in Olympics, Steroids in Sports