Hard to believe UCI were clueless

UCI president Pat McQuaid and his predecessor Hein Vergrubben didn’t get to where they are by talking first and thinking second...at least you’d hope not anyway.

The pair have held the loftiest office in cycling since 1991 (McQuaid since September 2005) but that period — almost a quarter of a century, can only be described as an unmitigated disaster.

If, as they say, they are the one’s at the forefront of the anti-doping movement, the purveyors of a cutting-edge system designed to snare cheats, then why, or how can it be, that 20 of the 21 podium finishers at the Tour de France during the period from 1999-2005 were implicated in doping by a subsequent investigation — and just one of these had a positive test with the UCI.