McQuaid: UCI vote must be respected

Irishman Pat McQuaid has promised not to prolong the bitter battle over the presidency of the International Cycling Union (UCI) if he is deposed from office by British challenger Brian Cookson in Friday’s vote.

The winner requires at least 22 of the 42 votes to prevail in Florence and, although he is confident of being elected to serve a third four-year term in office, McQuaid will accept the result if it does not go his way.

He hopes Cookson will, too, in a presidential race which has featured numerous verbal barbs, criticisms and controversy over the legislation and its interpretation.

McQuaid, UCI president since 2005, said: “I would hope that the vote would bring an end to all that.

“I know if I lose, I certainly won’t be looking to make a legal challenge. I’d walk away. I would hope my opponent would do the same.”

Cookson has publicised many of his endorsements — from national federations to high-profile ex-riders — while McQuaid has opted to take a different tact. “I do have a lot of support from within the sport itself, but I’m not going around listing names every day of people who are supporting me,” McQuaid said. “I’ve enough to be doing to continue my job in running the UCI than looking for endorsements, or whatever.”

His bid for reelection suffered a blow when delegates of the European Cycling Union, which has 14 votes, opted to back Cookson.

McQuaid said: “It wasn’t a big surprise to me, because one of his supporters is Igor Makarov, the Russian oligarch (president of the Russian Cycling Federation and member of the UCI management committee).

“He carries a lot of influence within European federations. He provided Europe with a e1m sponsorship deal some months ago. I think his influence was brought to bear.”

McQuaid has taken much criticism for his failure to act following the release of the USADA document last October which exposed Lance Armstrong as a drugs cheat, but the former insists he is cleaning up cycling and that he requires a third and final term to complete unfinished business.

“I want to tidy it up and then at the end of the four years to step away,” the 64-year-old said.

McQuaid also insisted the demands of the job mean it takes time (to eradicate the sport of doping) and there’s a lot more to his job than just that. “It’s a lot more involved than a lot of people think,” McQuaid said.

“You need to develop relationships with your federations, 175 federations, you need to visit them, meet with their governments and ministers and develop relationships with them, in order to ask them to help develop the sport in the country.

“You’ve got another term to continue to develop the sport and utilise the relationships you have. Changing a culture does take time.

“We’re in a programme of doing it and there’s a lot of evidence that the sport is cleaning up; it’s a lot cleaner than it was when I came into it.”