Formation of Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) - Part 2
The cyclist was hence banned from Britain but there were weaknesses in ICA that does not force the members of all the countries to follow the decisions made by the committee which resulted in the League of American Wheelman and other countries not taking
any notice of the decision.
ICA faced an opposition in 1890’s as George Herbert Stancer; a British cycling official mentioned that ICA had done a good job by getting the support of all the major bodies controlling the sport in the cycling world as he continued, “Then discord began
to simmer in France, where objection was taken to Britain's alleged domination over international racing. This domination was more apparent than real, for the NCU exercised no control or influence over the independent governing bodies of Scotland, Ireland,
Australia, South Africa and Canada. France, to put it plainly, wanted to rule the roost and the method adopted to achieve that end was not particularly creditable."
France raised its concern that Britain shall not have more than one team participating in the championships and should not have more than one vote in that scenario and Ireland, Wales and Scotland shall be representing separate teams.
France was hence not ready to accept or withstand the ICA that allows more than one British team to participate in the world championships and hence in 1900 France along with other associated countries formed UCI replacing the International Cycling Association.
UCI handles almost all kind of issues and concerns related to professional cycling such as managing the race classifications, the ranking system, looking after the matter of doping and also providing the cyclists with licenses. Mountain biking, Road biking
or track cycling all the three disciplines fall under UCI for both Men and Women categories.
Formation of Union Cycliste Internationale in 1934 hence created one of the biggest cycling controversies but UCI’s journey has not been pretty clean even after that as it has faced a number of disagreements especially on disallowing the recumbent bicycle
which was the first choice for many cyclists.
Road bike or a racing bicycle designed for the road cycling competition is organised and approved by UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale). Recumbent was a favourite choice for most of the cyclists for many reasons including the support that it gives to the
back and buttocks of the rider and was considered more comfortable as comparing to the traditional upright bicycle.
The recumbent bicycles were available in different and a broad range of configurations and most of the models were aerodynamic and holds a world record for a top speed by a bicycle and hence was banned for racing in 1934.
UCI came up with a definition of a racing bicycle on April 1, 1934 which mentioned some basic rules such as the distance of the bottom bracket in front of the seat and also its height from the ground and all vehicles failing to fall under this definition
were banned from the race. There was no serious developments made on the recumbent since the ban.
The second big controversy that involved UCI was in 1990 when it was blamed to have accepted a bribe of $ 3,000,000 as claimed by BBC that Japanese sources has paid the amount to UCI for adding the race to the Olympics. The charges however were denied by
UCI.
The retired American cyclist Floyd Landis made a confession in May 2010 that he has used the performance enhancing drug throughout his career and also accused his country man Lance Armstrong of bribing UCI after the positive EPO results during the Tour de
Suisse 2001.
Continued in Part 3
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