UCI takes hostages

By any means necessary...

Our buddy Pat McQuaid and his UCI homies are back at it, threatening the French ProTour teams that are considering participating in this year's Paris-Nice. It's unclear what "very hard sanctions" old Paddy has in mind, but that Berretta looks kinda scary. I'd like to say that the French teams in question are between a rock and a hard place but they're not, seeing as they're really in the crossfire of grumpy old men trying to ruin cycling more efficiently than a new doping scandal ever could.

UCI continues to emabarrass itself

Hey Quaid, want a little cheese with that whine? Denying Astana a ProTour license should be embarrassing enough for the UCI, seeing as disgraced former team Liberty Seguros chief Manolo Saiz still holds a license. Claiming late filing of papers is why is downright pathetic. From cyclingnews.com:

“Quite simply, they haven’t followed the regulations,” said UCI President Pat McQuaid when Cyclingnews contacted him on Thursday evening. “They [Astana] didn’t get their information in on time. It is as simple as that. The regulations are there for all the teams to follow. They know the times, they know the dates, they know what they need to get in and the correct paperwork wasn’t in on time.”

What do these guys have against Astana? The people in charge at the UCI are like a driving road test instructor whose single greatest pleasure in life is to intimidate and fail frightened teenage girls. Way to go, UCI!