The conflict between the international Cycling association UCI and the sports organizer ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) has gotten worst. The reason for the by now deadlocked situation was the Decision of the ASO to start the Paris-Nice Tour in March 2008 without the Kazakh Astana-Team due to their doping cases in 2007. At the end of the year 2006, the ASO decided together with the organizers RCS-Sports and Unipublic that the squads can only participate in their races with an official invitation. The Astana-Team is already the second team which will be excluded from this event after ASO did not let the Swedish Unibet-Squad participate in the previous year. The world association UCI disagreed with this unfair decision since both teams have the ProTour-Licence of the UCI.
The UCI represents over 170 national and 5 continental federations and also represents around 61,500 cyclists. The UCI was founded with the aim to step in for the interests of cycling and to organize World Cups for the different disciplines of cycling. They organize since 2005 for example the existing Pro-Tour which replaced the Cycle-World-Cup. The tour contains several one-day races and stage races where the Paris-Nice-Tour also belongs to and until last year also the Tour de France.
Both races were cancelled from this year's UCI Pro-Tour program due to the disagreements with the organizer. The conflict between the UCI and the ASO started already in 2005 when the Tour was held for the first time. Apparently the ASO does not respect the authority of the world association. The race organizer ASO opposed the Pro-Tour together with the organizers RCS-Sports und Unipublic. They did not see themselves as members of this Tour and didn't want to accomplish the ceremonial hand over of the white jersey to the respective overall leader. The UCI is a non-governmental organization whose actions are not acquisitive. UCI-President McQuaid believes that for ASO this is their only aim.
The victims of this conflict are the cyclists who are being pressured by both sides due to sanctions. The German cyclist Linus Gerdemann finds it quite unacceptable the cyclists are affected by the argument and they should undergo punishments for cycling. If the squads won't enter the race Paris-Nice, they will be excluded from the following Tour de France. On the other hand; if they do participate in this race they will be punished from the other side since the UCI states that ASO does not follow the international rules. McQuaid declared: the ASO wants to establish an own league. If the teams follow them and start at this race they automatically give them the moral justification to do so and keep going their way. The UCI trusts in the teams that they understand the seriousness of this situation and they will not participate in this race, also respect of possible sanctions." If the teams will start it might affect the chances for an Olympic attendance.
The cyclists risk in both cases their future and the completion of their dreams. The biggest squads which belong to the Team Federation AIGCP have decided to participate in the race despite the warnings from the UCI. AIGCP-President Boyer wants to meet with McQuaid next week to negotiate about the future.
Several teams have appealed for help to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport. But both the UCI and the ASO declared they were not responsible for this case. Therefore; the court will not decide anything in this case. Will the world cycling split now?
