The world championships is supposed to be a celebration of cycling but a decision from the UCI has cast a shade over the transparency of the governing body and its willingness to be transparent.
Iain Treloar was refused access to UCI Worlds, with the UCI saying that CyclingTips had already filled their quota of journalists despite a relatively empty media centre and other organisations having more accredited members.
Treloar has built a reputation for quirky, off-beat pieces, his most recent report from roadside at the worlds is on the seagull’s perspective as it crashed into Bauke Mollema. However, he is best known for his investigative journalism into the less talked about areas of the sport.
Treloar reported on the story behind the triumphant narrative of the UCI-sponsored escape of Afghanistan cyclists from Afghanistan, bringing to light the abuses of power and questioning the number of cyclists present as opposed to associates of the president of the Afghan Cycling Federation.
He also drew attention to the ties between Russia and the UCI in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and of the UCI awarding their highest honour secretly to Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the president of Turkmenistan, head of one of the most dictatorial regimes in the world.
Appropriately, Turkmenistan press freedom’s current ranking is 177 out of 180 countries ranked according to Reporters without Borders, and the UCI are aligning themselves closer to the values of the dictatorship with the response to Treloar.
In UCI President David Lappartient’s only press conference at the world championships, Kieran Pender from the Guardian asked a questioning following up from a report by colleague Christopher Knaus on Treloar being excluded from the event, asking specifically, “what do you say to the allegations is undermining press freedom?”
“Two points,” said Lappartient. “The first one is that it’s exactly the UCI policy for the accreditations, it has been published, it’s three per newspaper and from what I understand CyclingTips already have three journalists. Every newspaper is here with three journalists, after that I don’t have any specific comment to make.
“By the way, every newspaper is welcome but this newspaper used its three accreditations which we do for this event, so here we are.”
SBS Sport has ascertained that CyclingTips actually has two journalists and one photographer, the Illawarra Mercury has 9 accredited members at the race, in refutation of Lappartient and the UCI's claims. The mostly empty facility at the Entertainment Centre, perhaps ten per cent full at its busiest and wouldn't be stretched by the addition of one reporter, or even with all organisations present having four reporters.
CyclingTips editor-in-chief, Caley Fretz, responded to the claims from the UCI President in response to a request from SBS Sport.
“It’s clear to us that the stated reason for denying Iain’s credential simply does not hold water,” said Fretz. “The whole situation is deeply disappointing, petty, and unbecoming of the sport’s governing body.
“We’re here as Australia’s largest cycling-focused publication to cover and promote the sport we love, yet the UCI’s behaviour is preventing us from doing just that.”
Treloar himself is outside of the media centre facility, but he is still out and about in Wollongong, and if the aim of the UCI was to repress the reporting of Treloar’s articles then it’s failed, as it is just drawing further attention to them.
The cycling journalists’ union, l’Association Internationale des Journalistes du Cyclisme (AIJC) UK representative, Sadhbh O’Shea was on the ground in Wollongong and said she had never seen the ‘three reporters’ rule applied and there were no space constraints in the media centre.
