MAASTRICHT, Netherlands - The International Cycling Union backed away Friday from the idea of an amnesty or truth and reconciliation commission for riders who took performance-enhancing drugs in the past.
At its annual congress, the UCI adopted a motion calling on the governing body to deal with current doping cases and "ignore attempts to exploit commercially or otherwise the painful aspects of cycling's past."
The motion was drawn up earlier this week by the UCI's management committee during discussions about the possibility of setting up a truth and reconciliation commission at which riders could confess their doping pasts as a way of cleaning up the sport and draw a line under an era tainted by drugs.
"That was discussed at management committee and ... from that discussion came this (motion)," UCI President Pat McQuaid told The Associated Press after Friday's congress.
The committee said, "This is the direction we need to go. We need to concentrate on the sport today and not so much to the past," McQuaid told AP.
The motion's preamble says there is "no point in continuing to re-examine the past of then undetectable doping and stigmatize the sport of the young generations now that the situation has considerably improved through the UCI's continued efforts."
