International Cycling Association - Background

Background

The ethos at the end of the 19th century and the increasing influence of the Olympic Games made amateurism an issue in many sports. It was especially relevant in cycle racing because riders had begun travelling internationally to compete in track, or velodrome, races. Riders from one country would complain that they were at a disadvantage to those from another, that they were riding against what they considered to be professionals.

The world's dominant cycling association was the National Cyclists' Union (NCU) in Britain. The historian Jim McGurn said:

"The National Cyclists' Union, made itself unpopular in the early 1890s for its stubborn and seemingly nit-picking opposition to riders who professed themselves 'amateur'".

"The national organisations which governed cycle sport were often in dispute, largely as a result of their varying attitudes to the spread of professionalism. The Bicycle Union, having quarrelled with the Amateur Athletics Association over cycle race jurisdiction on AAA premises, took issue with the Union Vélocipèdique de France over the French body's willingness to allow its 'amateurs' to compete for prizes of up to 2,000 francs, the equivalent of about 16 months' pay for a French manual worker. The Bicycle Union often refused to recognise the amateur licences of visiting UVF competitors, and eventually broke off relations on the grounds that the UVF allowed mixed amateur-professional events."

The NCU's championships were considered the unofficial championships of the world. It was because the sport needed world championships independent of any national body that Henry Sturmey of the magazine The Cyclist and later founder of the Sturmey-Archer gear company proposed an International Cyclists Association in 1892. Having secured the co-operation of British officials and writers such as George Lacy Hillier, he approached other countries' national associations through the NCU.

They met in the Royal Agricultural Hall, London in November 1892, listed as representing the NCU (Henry Sturmey and W. M. Appleton), the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques (A. E. Kemplen), German Cyclists Union (Heinrich Kleyer), Dutch Cyclists Union (Franz Netcher), Italian Cyclists Union (G. Bonetti), Belgian Cyclists Union (A. Choisy), Canadian Cyclists Association (Dr P. E. Doolittle).

Trouble was already in store because the Union des Sociétés Françaises de Sports Athlétiques was not the French national body. The national body, the Union Vélocipèdique Française, sent observers but was not allowed to take part because the NCU had broken off relationships with it over the question of amateurism. Scottish Cyclist reported:

"Already some difficulties have presented themselves. France and its freedom have long been a bugbear to those countries which possess a stringent amateur definition. From their point of view nearly all French riders are professionals, and the Union Vélocipèdique de France a professional organisation. Some time ago, the UVF having failed to establish an amateur class, a cycling section of a large athletic club run on amateur principles was recognised by the NCU as the amateur governing body. But it no more represents French cyclists than, say, the Edinburgh University CC does Scottish cyclists."

The meeting agreed that any country could belong to the ICA "providing they enforce a strict amateur rule", resolved to hold a world championship on the track at one mile, 10 km and, with pacers, 100 km. "If possible," the meeting resolved, "a team race of teams of not more than four, at a distance of 10km."