Cycling Blog – News, Articles, Pictures & Videos

Nine hours of negotiation finally resolved the impasse between the Union Cycliste Internationale of which Dubliner, Pat McQuaid heads as president and Amaury Sports organisation (ASO) of which the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuleta (Tour of Spain) are members of early yesterday morning.
The governing body of the UCI gave the go ahead for teams to participate in the Paris/Nice which starts this Sunday.
The teams found themselves facing a dilemma as the UCI threatened to sanction those who would participate in the race hosted by Tour de France organisers ASO.
On the other hand, ASO sent out a strong message as well by announcing to reject those teams that would skip Paris-Nice, from the Tour de France as well.

‘It was like a Conclave to elect a Pope! We did not step outside the meeting room and not as much as a cup of tea passed my lips. But, it was important that this was resolved for all concerned with the sport.
‘It also means that whilst the three tours will have the option of inviting teams to their particular races, the ProTour will have the opportunity to promote ProTour events in any oart of the globe. Heretofore, these events were all held on the European mainland.
‘Ireland has the option of now making a bid for an event.
‘Let’s say that the experience I gained in my earlier career as president of Cycling Ireland was beneficial and now we can look forward to the promotion cycling all over the world,’ said Pat.

-end-