A respected cycling journalist who was twice blocked from attending the Wollongong world cycling championships believes he has been blacklisted for reporting on the governing body’s links to a notoriously repressive regime and a Russian billionaire under sanctions.
Investigative journalist Iain Treloar’s recent reporting has posed uncomfortable questions for the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – the powerful governing body for world cycling.
Treloar has probed the influence of Russian billionaire Igor Makarov, who has retained his position on UCI’s management committee despite being subject to sanctions from Australia and Canada over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He examined the UCI’s friendly relationship with Turkmen autocrat and former president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who led a regime that Human Rights Watch condemned as “extremely repressive”.