UCI Ruling - Potentially Significant

[Antsonline]

This could be a big change for us, or the MTBA could come out early and make a ruling to tell us where they stand.

http://www.usacycling.org/clarification-of-uci-rule-12019-and-related-sanctions.htm

The key bits are:

"No licence holder may participate in an event that has not been included on a national, continental or world calendar or that has not been recognised by a national federation, a continental confederation or the UCI.

A national federation may grant special exceptions for races or particular events run in its own country."

"Licence holders who participate in a "forbidden race" make themselves liable not only to sanctions by their National Federation, as scheduled by Article 1.2.021 of the UCI regulations, but also run the risk of not having sufficient insurance cover in the event of an accident."

Signed "Uncle Pat"


If I was to race (say) Capital Punishment or Fling or Convict, would I then be 'sanctioned' and unable to race a UCI event eg. National Marathon Champs.

 

[serowe]

It will be interesting to see how MTBA and CA attempt to handle this.

Anyone who was involved in motor sport around 2000 will know that the Confederation of Australian Motor Sport attempted this when the Australian Auto Sport Alliance came onto the scene offering alternative sanctioning, licencing and insurance. CAMS thought they would start handing out sanctions and penalties against anyone taking part in AASA events - until the ACCC and the trade Practices Act were brought into the equation.

The bottom line was, in Australia, you can forget about even thinking of trying to penalise or hand out sanctions simply because you don't use a so-called 'official' supplier (in the example CAMS, in this case, both CA and MTBA).

The outcome of the CAMS/AASA war was that both organisations still exist - but effectively for different levels (CAMS certainly cater for the more professional racing whilse AASA handle, very well, the Joe Public and car club level racing). They don't like each other, but they co-exist.

Whether this scenario would work here with MTB events is, well probably, unlikely - but the scenario of anyone (CA or MTBA) attempting to say 'You will not ride in an event we don't sanction' is not likely to happen - unless, of course, that body has very very very deep financial reserves because the fines from ACCC can be extremely high.

 

[DaSchmooze]

I don't see it being an issue. I'd dearly love to see CA try to do this to anyone other than a pro team rider. Quite honestly, I'd be more than happy to hand back my license (which I use for the occasional D grade criterium) and continue to do all the mass participation events and I'm fairly certain people at Ca or MTBA would know this.