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Pat McQuaid. : Peter Dejong/AP/Press Association Images
Cycling

Lance Armstrong scandal: Cycling chief Pat McQuaid replaced on IOC panel

The Dubliner old Olympic chiefs he has ‘too much going on’ at the moment.

THE IRISH-BORN head of cycling’s governing body has been replaced on a key International Olympic Committee panel as he deals with the fall-out from the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

International Cycling Union President Pat McQuaid said today he was too busy to attend all the meetings of the Olympic commission evaluating bids for the 2020 Summer Games.

“It’s quite simple,” McQuaid told The Associated Press. “I have too much going on and I can’t afford to be spending two weeks away from the office in March.”

McQuaid was appointed to the 10-person commission in September as the representative of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations. He has been replaced by Patrick Baumann, a Swiss IOC member and secretary general of international basketball federation FIBA.

“He couldn’t meet the schedule and we had to find someone else,” IOC vice president Craig Reedie, who chairs the evaluation commission, told the AP. “That’s all. There’s nothing sensitive about it in any way.”

Visits

The IOC panel is assessing the 2020 bids from Madrid, Tokyo and Istanbul. The commission will pay four-day visits to each city in March and compile a detailed report ahead of a special briefing with the candidates in July in Lausanne, Switzerland. The IOC will choose the host city Sept. 7 in Buenos Aires.

McQuaid told the IOC he would be unable to go on the visits to all three cities.

“I contacted ASOIF, because I was their representative, and suggested that they find a replacement,” McQuaid said.

It’s not the only position McQuaid has relinquished in recent months. He lost his spots on the World Anti-Doping Agency executive committee and foundation board at the end of the year. He was replaced by Ugur Erdener of Turkey.

McQuaid and former UCI president Hein Verbruggen have come under scrutiny in the wake of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report that detailed systematic doping by Armstrong and his teams. Armstrong has been stripped of his seven Tour de France titles and banned from sports for life.

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