The UCI has stood down the Independent Commission it set up in response to the USADA investigation, and will replace it with a ‘truth and reconciliation commission’.
The three-strong IC panel, which had included Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, has been scrapped, and the work of a truth and reconciliation commission (TRC) will begin later this year.
Cycling’s beleaguered governing body blamed its decision on the refusal of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) to cooperate with the Independent Commission unless an element of so-called ‘T&R’ was involved.
UCI president, Pat McQuaid, said: “We have listened carefully to the views of WADA, USADA and cycling stakeholders and have decided that a truth and reconciliation process is the best way to examine the culture of doping in cycling in the past and to clear the air so that cycling can move forward.”
The decision represents another humiliating u-turn for the Swiss-based authority, one made following a bruising statement from WADA president, John Fahey, who described the UCI’s Independent Commission as a “questionable and useless exercise”.
“It has again become apparent that rather than deal with the obvious problems that exist within the sport of cycling, the UCI once again would like to avoid its responsibilities and instead seek to blame WADA and others,” Fahey had said.
McQuaid said he had spoken to Fahey over the weekend and decided that the UCI could no longer fund the Independent Commission if its findings were unlikely to enjoy the support of a “major stakeholder” like WADA.
The Independent Commission had been set up in response to the USADA ‘reasoned decision’ report on its investigation into systematic doping at the Lance Armstrong-led US Postal Service cycling team.
