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Keep us on track! Second open letter to the UCI

Posted by ADMIN admin@beatcyclingclub.com on
Keep us on track! Second open letter to the UCI

Join our fight and sign our petition

Date: July 17, 2019

Dear Mr. Lappartient, Mr. Peruzzi and Management Committee members:

On June 24, 2019, we raised our concerns regarding the announced track reforms in an open letter. Since then, the UCI has not addressed our concerns that UCI track teams will be banned from the highest level of competition. As a major stakeholder in track cycling, we find it extremely unfortunate that we have not been able to establish further contact to discuss this. Today we, our riders and our partners remain very concerned. That is why we have decided to write this second open letter to you, with a heartfelt appeal to inform and involve us in designing the future of track cycling.

Thus far we have seen only fragments of the UCI track reform plans. We invite you to share with us and other UCI track teams the overall plans and the rationale behind these plans. We understand that part of the rationale for the track reforms has been detailed in a report drawn up by a leading consultancy firm. We would be very interested in reading this report to gain insight into the rationale behind the announced plans. If we indeed understood correctly, we urge you to publish this report.

We noted that the UCI, in the person of Mr. Lappartient, indicated in an interview with the Dutch NOS news channel on Sunday, July 7, that the UCI plans to add some form of commercial track program. We do not know what this new plan entails, as we have not been involved in the discussions or informed of their outcome. Therefore, we do not know at this moment whether this plan would ease our concerns and allow us to continue competing at the highest level.

The current uncertainty is damaging the development of track cycling already today. As we write this letter, we are in discussions with new partners wanting to invest in the further development of our UCI track team. It is frustrating that we cannot give them any certainty regarding where track cycling is headed. We therefore urge you to provide more clarity as soon as possible. If we are forced to wait until the Management Committee meeting in September, it will be difficult for all those involved in track cycling to plan for 2020.

We are not the only ones who are concerned. We have seen a great deal of media coverage, social media interaction and comments from concerned riders, race organizers and other stakeholders in the sport of cycling. At BEAT Cycling Club we have taken it upon ourselves to express these track cycling–wide concerns. You may be aware that we have started an online petition. At the time of this writing, more than 6,600 people have already indicated that they share our concerns and support our #KeepUsOnTrack mission.

We are still open to various ways to move track cycling forward and are eager to help strengthen the future of the sport. We look forward to receiving your reply to this letter and discussing our ideas with you.

Yours sincerely,

Geert Broekhuizen, Edwin Gulickx (Management BEAT Cycling Club)
Theo Bos, Matthijs Büchli, Roy van den Berg, Laurine van Riessen (Rider representatives BEAT Track Team)
Björn Jeurissen / AGU, Christiaan Moerman / Hertz Benelux, Sten van der Ham / Accell Benelux, Mischa Strijder / Plantina, Yahti Riskin / Isostar Benelux (BEAT Partner representatives)

Let your voice be heard to get this ridiculous plan of the table 
Sign our petition and show the UCI that the cycling community is against the announced ban of UCI track teams. 

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