The International Cycling Union (UCI) has clarified a proposal from its president Pat McQuaid to ban riders who dope from managing teams, which was published on VeloNation this afternoon. In an interview with BBC Sport, McQuaid outlined the proposal, which, he hopes, would go some way to break the cycle of doping within the sport.
The VeloNation story named a far from exhaustive list of current team managers, to whom this new proposal could apply, which included the managers of some of the sport’s biggest teams and pointed out that there would be serious legal issues, should the UCI retroactively try to implement such a rule. The original story in BBC Sport specifically mentioned Saxo Bank-SunGard manager Bjarne Riis as an example.
UCI press chief Enrico Carpani has clarified to VeloNation that, should the proposal be accepted by the UCI management board next month, it would not be applied retrospectively.
“In fact,” said Carpani, [McQuaid] never said that if accepted this new rule will be also “retroactively” (which should be easy to understand would be impossible – from legal point of view – not only in cycling, but in all different fields of human activities: i. e. speed limit is today 120km/h, you will not be fined because of driving, 20 years ago at 140 if limit was 150…).”
“Practically,” he added, “it means that from the moment on the proposal should be accepted, a rider who will be involved in a doping case won’t be allowed to be part of cycling anymore in the future.”