Fred Fredburger said:The UCI should sanction amateur cycling races and leave professional
racing to an organization that promotes professional cycling. I don't
know where that second organization would come from.
This is a plausible approach. For those who don't know the history,
we've already been there and done that. I now think we should repeat
that scenario but in a more sensible way. Here is a summary of cycling
history from a U.S. perspective (mine, of course). Unfortunately it is
full of alphabet soup.
The first international cycling federation, called the International
Cyclists Association (ICA), was founded in 1892 by racing organizations
from Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, and
U.S.A. At that time U.S.A. racing was run by the original League of
American Wheelmen (LAW), which had no connection with the later
organizations that took that name. However ICA was dominated by the
Brits, who arranged to have separate votes to England, Scotland,
Ireland, and Wales.
That imbalance eventually led to ICA's downfall when, in 1900, the
International Cycling Union (UCI in French) was formed by cycling
organizations from Belgium, France, Italy, Switzerland, and U.S.A. The
U.S.A. organization by that time was the National Cycling Association
(NCA), which had come to power in 1898 when clubs in Northern California
initiated the overthrow of LAW. Brits and others were allowed to join
UCI later.
NCA was overthrown by the Amateur Bicycle League of American (ABLA) at
the end of World War 2. NCA had been dominated by commercial interests
that owned velodromes throughout the country and their corrupt control
of six-day racing had resulted in a loss of public interest by the end
of the 1930s, which meant they had no money.
In 1965, UCI formed two subordinate organizations. FIAC for amateur
cycling and FICP for pro competition. Note that this FIAC had no
connection with the modern organization that uses those initials. In
that era the Olympics were supposed to be strictly amateur but the
Eastern Bloc countries soon made a mockery of that and the rest of the
world began cheating in the same ways. As a result the Olympics soon
came to be dominated by pros, just as had happened in the ancient
Olympics 2,000 years ago.
In 1975 ABLA changed its name to United States Cycling Federation (USCF)
based on an alleged offer that it would control both amateur and
professional cycling in the U.S. However that offer was then withdrawn
and the U.S. Professional Racing Organization (USPRO) began developing
pro cycling, though they were losing money big time.
In 1992 UCI reunified the FIAC and FICP, merging them back into the UCI.
Consistent with that, a reorganization of U.S. cycling was initiated in
1993 (by me) to bring the various U.S. cycling bodies together in USA
Cycling. However this reorganization got corrupted in the legislative
process with the result that commercial interests now control USA
Cycling and run it to suit themselves even though a large portion of
their income derives from non-pro riders.
I now believe that it would be in the best interests of the sport to
resegregate pro and non-pro racing. Indeed, that is what I'm working on.
For more on UCI history see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Cycliste_Internationale
-Les Earnest
