The under-pressure McQuaid, labelled "deceitful" by WADA President John Fahey and "pathetic" by self-confessed drugs cheat Lance Armstrong, is facing the biggest crisis of his leadership.

He is now hoping to get the IOC members on his side by sending the following letter, which has been seen by insidethegames: 

Dear Members

You are no doubt well aware of the uncomfortable recent media coverage concerning relations between WADA and the UCI.

I am enclosing the UCI press release of 29 January 2013, in which we very reluctantly decided to release the correspondence between myself and John Fahey. We took this decision because of the enormous discrepancies between what John Fahey was saying to me on the telephone and in his email and the continuing aggressive attacks on the UCI by WADA in public.

Having said that, and as I stated clearly in my letter to Mr Fahey, I wish to reiterate my sincere belief that it is time to put the past beihnd us and start to work together for the good of cycling and for sport in general.

We have listened very closely in past weeks and, given WADA's lack of confidence in the Independent Commission that the UCI established, it was clear that our federation could no longer fund a procedure whose outcome is so certain to be rejected by such an important stakeholder. That is why we decided to disband the Independent Commission with immediate effect.

We took this decision with great regret, but given the views of WADA we did not see any other option. We are extremely grateful to Sir Philip Otton, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Malcolm Holmes QC for their valuable work, as well as John Coates, President of ICAS, for his support and help in establishing the Independent Commission.


"The UCI is committed to establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to examine the culture of doping in cycling in the past, as well as the allegations contained in the USADA reasoned decision on Lance Armstrong and the United States Postal Service (USPS) team, and to clean the air so that our sport can move forward.

"In order to do this, I very much hope that WADA will now desist from continuing the current undignified war of words via the media and sit down with us in a spirit of cooperation and partnership to work out the details of the Truth and Reconcilliation process. In return, the UCI will gladly do the same. 

"We would welcome any support you can offer in underlining to WADA the importance of working in partnership and cooperation.with the UCI to establish this Truth and Reconcilliation Commission."

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