Pat McQuaidÂ’s bid for a third term as president of the UCI has suffered another major setback after Swiss Cycling withdrew its nomination for him.
The Irishman, a Swiss resident since being appointed UCI president in 2005, had failed to win the backing of Cycling Ireland and sought a nomination from Swiss Cycling instead. The nomination was scheduled to come before an arbitration board in Zurich on Thursday, with McQuaid confident of success, but now that process has been cancelled.
A statement from Swiss Cycling read: “The director of the Swiss Cycling committee returned to the decision of May 13, 2013 concerning the appointment of Pat McQuaid and yesterday decided to withdraw the nomination of Pat McQuaid for his re-election as president of the UCI. “Consequently, the arbitration requested by the three members of Swiss Cycling is cancelled, since there is no reason.”
McQuaid is being challenged for the presidency by Brian Cookson, the British Cycling president since 1996. Yet the presidential battle may not now reach a vote in Florence next month, as McQuaid appears to require a change to legislation to be eligible. The amendment allowed McQuaid to be nominated by the Thai and Moroccan federations and was proposed by the Malaysian federation and the Asian confederation, but its use in the current presidential race could be determined by lawyers.
Cookson issude a statement saying: “This latest development is of real significance to the presidential election process. It leaves Mr McQuaid in a very difficult position, particularly when viewed alongside his failure to receive a nomination from his own national federation as required under the constitution of the UCI. “It also places further question marks against his other ‘nominations’ whose validity is in serious doubt and remain a matter of genuine concern to many in the cycling world. “No attempts at manipulation and legal bluster can take away the doubts and questions. “The important principle in any democracy is that you must respect the rules as they are, not how you’d like them to be. My hope remains that we have a democratic process based on the rules of the race when it started rather than those made up half way through.”
