Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2003

By Bill Bean

This year's Road World Championship presents a once-in-a-lifetime challenge to the world's best cyclists, and those who are not here to accept the challenge, have made a great mistake, says Hein Verbruggen, president of the Union Cycliste Internationale.

Mr. Verbruggen held a rare, English-language press conference on Tuesday, Oct. 7, for the North American media at the site of this year's road championships in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

Mr. Verbruggen praised the work of the organizing committee, and praised the site, saying it offered a unique challenge to road cyclists.

Although last year's road world championships was one of the most successful, with almost 400,000 spectators, the Belgian route was largely a flat course.

Mr. Verbruggen said that research indicated that spectators expect certain things from a world class cycling event.

"What they expect from cycling is endurance, that it is tough ... for most people, cycling should be a metaphor for life, all the problems you meet in life, in one sport: the struggle against the elements, endurance . . . the fact that you have to give in as an individual to work for a team.

"That's what people expect from cycling, and that's why I was not personally very much in favour of last year's course .... Personally, I believe the world championship is a unique day, and I would go for a course like here in Hamilton, which, no doubt, is pretty tough. "

Asked about the lack of such big name riders as Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich among the participants at the 2003 Worlds, Mr. Verbruggen said, "The situation in cycling has developed that . . . you have more and more specialized riders. Lance Armstrong is a specialist for the Tour de France, and that's what he does. He does a pre-season which is a function of the Tour de France, (then) for him, the season is over.

"The time of riders like Eddie Merckx is over, riders that were there from March until October.

"What I do not understand is their sponsors. I can not understand that a sponsor, like Bianchi, accepts that Ullrich . . . has done something in June, make a beautiful Tour de France and then says 'Bye-bye, I'm on vacation.'

"I am not disappointed (at their absence) because I know as of Sunday (the day of the Elite Men road race final), nobody will talk about it.

"I'm a very positive guy. I'm always looking at those who are there. And those who are not there, they're wrong. It's their mistake, their problem, their responsibility."

Mr. Verbruggen also said the road world championships are "the only race we have which is based on national teams, which I think is very important. I think at least once a year you should have a race where people can come for the flag of their country. "

On the matter of the current tensions between UCI and the World Anti-Doping Agency, Mr. Verbruggen did not offer any time frame for the lifting of the UCI ban on observers from WADA, announced last month.

Mr. Verbruggen said UCI remains "extremely disappointed" with the leak last month of WADA's independent observer report on this year's Tour de France. Mr. Verbruggen said that UCI does "a lot of anti-doping work which has been praised by WADA on many occasions . . . UCI has been extremely constructive and positive in its co-operation with WADA, but the two come to a point where cycling is singled out and has more controls than everybody else and I'm, of course, not very happy."

He said that UCI is working on the implementation of the WADA code, saying that the code is very and "the lawyers now have to go in there and take everything that is in the WADA code and fit it into our existing rules ... it is subject to a lot of work."