UCI president Pat McQuaid is facing more and more opposition in his desire to be elected for a third term as head of the cycling governing body.

On the 12th of April, the Irishman was nominated by the board of Cycling Ireland, with only Anthony Moran voting against him, saying he couldn’t endorse McQuaid after the UCI’s handling of the Lance Armstrong affair. Moran resigned from his post a few days later, and challenged the board’s decision for failing to follow proper procedure.

Two weeks after the initial vote, on the 26th of April, Cycling Ireland accepted that challenge and called an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to make the final decision on McQuaid’s nomination. This EGM will be held today, and all Irish cycling clubs are allowed to send delegates according to their number of club members. In preparation for the EGM, a number of Cycling Ireland members including a.o. Anthony Moran and journalist Cillian Kelly of Irishpeloton.com have prepared a file on McQuaid, listing arguments speaking against his re-election. This “Pat McQuaid File” is published here.

In the meantime, McQuaid asked Swiss Cycling to endorse his nomination, as he’s currently residing in Switzerland because of his office at the UCI. On the 16th of May, Swiss Cycling confirmed with this request, but the group around Moran and Kelly objected to this on the grounds that Swiss Cycling overruled Cycling Ireland when the Irish decision was not yet final. Swiss Cycling held another meeting to discuss this on the 3rd of June, but couldn’t make a decision as the quorum wasn’t met with only 3 of the 8 board members turning up.

One day later, British Cycling president Brian Cookson announced his candidacy, running against the incumbent. He was nominated by his own federation. McQuaid apparently considered his nomination secured despite the lack of clarity surrounding it, and sent a letter to the presidents of all national cycling federations smearing his opposing candidate. Finally, on Wednesday the 12 of June, three members of Swiss Cycling filed an appeal against the Swiss nomination. They are backed by Jaimie Fuller, owner of Australian sportswear company Skins and founder of the organization Change Cycling Now, who has lobbied against McQuaid since 2012.

On Thursday McQuaid was interviewed on Irish TV channel RTÉ, rejecting the points lined out in the “McQuaid File”. He claimed that “the Armstrong affair happened before my time”, despite the fact that before his presidency he served 8 years as chairman of the UCI Road Cycling Commission (coincidentally, Brian Cookson is the current chairman of that commission, presiding it since 2011). McQuaid denied accusations by former cyclists Jörg Jaksche, Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton that the UCI didn’t follow up on tips about doping in the pro peloton, and when asked about Lance Armstrong’s backdated prescription for corticosteroids during said that “it wasnt until we heard on the Oprah Winfrey show [on the 18th of January 2013] that we knew it was a backdated prescription”. However, a first-hand account of this affair was included in the book “L.A. Confidentiel”, published in 2004. McQuaid also called “the latest challenge to my Swiss nomination […] completely baseless — it is just one more shameless and confected PR stunt,” according to the Irish Examiner.

Finally, delegates from Irish cycling clubs will convene today to vote on whether or not Cycling Ireland should nominate McQuaid for another term. Several clubs have declared not to back McQuaid after internal votes, but there is no way to predict the outcome of the EGM. Should McQuaid fail to be nominated, the appeal against his Swiss nomination could spell the end of McQuaid’s ambitions: Any nominations have to be made at least 90 days before the date of the election, which is understood to be scheduled for the 27th of September, meaning that candidates have to secure nomination no later than the 29th of June, the first day of the Tour de France.

We will keep you updated on further developments here at CyclingQuotes.com.