The anti-visionary, foot-in-mouth, UCI cycling czar Patrick McQuaid was back in the news again. When the Irishman opens his mouth, it’s always instant news.
As usual, his quotes underline a sense that he’s a president who has no idea what’s going on with the number one problem in the sport he supposedly governs.
Apparently, there’s the possibility of the UCI opening some new biological passport cases but McQuaid sounds like the last man to know. Proactive, he ain’t.
“I don’t know exactly where we are with cases but having said that there was a discussion that did take place in this building about a number of athletes that are being studied because of their parameter data by the experts because we think that there should be cases opened against them,” McQuaid told Cyclingnews.
In essence, yes, he was in the same building as those discussing the possible doping cases but really, he was on his way to a cocktail function and really isn’t up to speed. One always has the sense that McQuaid is preoccupied with writing his memories or sending hate mail to Jonathan Vaughters. This doping stuff is low priority, let the underlings handle that. Of course, this is the same person that suggested to Alberto Contador that he tell no one about his failed doping test during the 2010 Tour de France.
“We have to wait for the process to happen and I can’t tell when or if that will happen, the decision hasn’t been made yet. I can’t say if it’s one, two or three athletes. It’s all at a late process but I don’t know exactly where. It could be weeks or days,” said McQuaid with precision.
“I can’t tell, I can’t say, I don’t know.” Those are three statements you don’t normally associate with leadership. It’s one thing to delegate and leave details to subordinates. It’s no crime to not know all the specifics of a particular program or initiative. It’s not required to reveal rider names until the internal investigation has finished. Still, there’s an out-of-the loop quality to those quotes.
We could certainly excuse Pat McQuaid if he was a big picture guy — but sadly, he isn’t. More of a status quo, don’t change a thing as long as I remain in power kinda guy.
Doping and revenue sharing are the two biggest issues in professional cycling. A president who doesn’t seem fully engaged and briefed on these subjects is a distressing thing. As the Inner Ring blog notes: “McQuaid himself doesn’t seem to know where the matter is at yet feels the need to talk about it. The only certainty today is confusion from the UCI.”
Well, that’s nothing new.
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