Several months on and no new cases have been opened. The only public development, a retreat by the UCI, with McQuaid admitting he regretted jumping the gun.
“I regret using that expression [in November]. I shouldn’t have done it. I’m better off staying out of it all together,” he told Cyclingnews.
“I can’t comment and I’m won't comment on where the passport is in any point in time. It just shows how complicated the whole thing is.”
With no new cases since mid-2010 the passport appears to have stalled. However, McQuaid said this was not the case and that there were no financial constraints in testing or passport profiling.
“It’s not in the least frustrating. I wasn’t looking at any cases personally. As until such time as anti-doping comes to me and says we have a positive, then I know about it. Before then I don’t know about it and I don’t want to know about it.”
Asked if he had asked the UCI’s anti-doping team for any update, he added: “I haven’t. It’s not my affair to ask any questions. My affair is to get the results. I don’t ask any questions until then. Like I said, I shouldn’t have said that to you at that time because I was obviously wrong. The passport is very strong.”
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McQuaid would not comment when asked if any of the original passport cases had been opened too soon.
Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
