UCI vs. ASO: Round 713

By Jessica | Permalink | No Comments | April 11th, 2007 | Trackback

At one point this morning I was sitting here innocently watching the Gent-Wevelgem coverage, happily focusing only on cycling and tactics and a great classic race. The sad news during the race was that on the cobbled descent of the Kemmel the second time through, several guys went down hard - from the looks of things, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more than a few broken bones being treated right now. So after the race ended (with a brilliant one-two finish by T-Mobile - read the recap here), I started hunting online to see if I could find out any updated information about the poor souls who were left lying beside the road.

I didn’t find anything about them (it’s too early yet), but I did find this:

UCI president Pat McQuaid has threatened to take action against Tour de France organisers ASO after declaring they had broken an agreement with cycling’s governing body.

“The agreement has clearly been broken by them and we’ll now study what action we can take,” McQuaid told Reuters before the start of the Ghent-Wevelgem race on Wednesday.

McQuaid made the comments after ASO did not invite Swedish ProTour team Unibet.com to take part in this month’s Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege one-day races, which they also organise.

ASO have justified their decision saying laws in France and Belgium do not permit online betting companies like Unibet to advertise in those countries.

Spokesman Matthieu Desplats said ASO were not aware of McQuaid’s comments but added: “The law in Belgium is exactly the same as in France.

“You can’t invite a company involved in online betting it’s against the law. The way they interpret the law in Belgium is different but the law is the same.”

However, the Unibet.com team were due to take part in Wednesday’s Ghent-Wevelgem race, which is not organised by ASO.

“I’ve been told the law they are talking about does not operate in Belgium and it’s an archaic law in France,” McQuaid said.

Now, I’m no fan of Pat McQuaid, but it seems to me that now it’s Monsieur Desplats who’s being the prat. And at a time when cycling is kind of teetering here, does anyone in their right mind think the sport can afford any more stupid squabbles over minutiae like this? C’mon, people, this isn’t about you - this is about the future of the entire sport of cycling. Please act accordingly.

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