Elections will be necessary for five of the 10 positions on the FIC Board at the annual general meeting in Malahide on Saturday, November 29th. Tomorrow is the closing date for nominations. It is also the last day for the receipt of motions and proposed rule changes although they will be accepted by post on Monday morning.
Pat McQuaid has completed his two-year term as president and despite his other commitments he will be seeking re-election.
The other elections will be for the chairs of various committees. They are held by Dermot Dignam (development committee), Brendan Donoghue (coaching), Paddy Griffin (leisure) and Peter Purfield (mountain bikes). All are going forward again.
Board members who stay on for another year are Jack Watson, Peter Thornton, Tommy Campbell, Frankie Campbell and Pierce Butler.
McQuaid is involved in the organisation of the Junior Tour and also the Tours of Malaysia and the Philippines. He has been the driving force behind the plans to stage the Irish start to the Tour de France next July and at the UCI Congress in San Sebastian he was elected to head a select committee responsible for world racing at under-23 and junior level. However, he does not want to relinquish the FIC presidency and is going for election again.
All the details of the Tour de France route for next year, including the Dublin prologue time trial on Saturday, July 11th, and the first two road stages on the following days, will be announced in Paris next Thursday.
The revelations that three FIC members used performance enhancing substances during the season is a cause for considerable concern and should be discussed fully at the a.g.m. but the whole aspect of racing at the top level needs to be better organised.
On occasions during the season teams went on international assignments although they were not officially named beforehand and the feed-back of results must be improved. Although there were several top FIC officials at the World Championships in San Sebastian I learned only yesterday of the Irish placings in the under-23 road race last Saturday.
Ciaran Power was best of them, 81st, a minute and 25 seconds behind the winner, Kurt AsleArvesen of Norway, who was timed at 3:46:28 for the 162 kilometres. Michael McNena was in the same group as Power, 83rd, with Paddy Moriarty 97th at 4:13, Dermot Finnegan 102nd at 7:11 and Aidan Duff 118th of the 133 finishers at 11:03. Geraldine Gill was 83rd in the womens' race, 20:04 behind the Italian winner.
Sean Kelly took part in the final event of the league and although beaten by Seamus Kennedy in the final sprint at the end of the 35 miles on the Navan Road he said he hoped to compete more next year.
