By Neto Baptiste
The Antigua and Barbuda Cycling Federation (ABCF) has “dropped” the Conor Delanbanque issue.
This is the word from the body’s president St Clair Williams who made the disclosure recently on the Good Morning Jojo Sports Show.
“At the moment he is not even a member because he hasn’t even renewed his membership for 2023 so he can’t be considered for anything. We had a meeting with the legal department of the [Union Cycliste Internationale] UCI, and coming out of it, there is nothing hard that we could pinpoint or nail down to deal with the situation, so we prefer to err on the side of caution and move on from that,” he said.
Last August, the ABCF launched an investigation after Delanbanque, a US-based cyclist, was a no-show at the recently held Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, England. According to Williams, since then the federation has been unsuccessful in its attempts to contact the athlete.
Asked if the cyclist was asked to refund the monies spent on airline ticket and other expenses, Williams said that decision is not for the federation to make.
“That is with the NOC or the Commonwealth Games committee. The purchasing of anything or payment of anything would have gone through the NOC. We don’t even have any communication because he is not [responding] to any sort of communication, so at the end of the day, what do we do?” he said.
The local body had sought the advice of high-ranking officials within the UCI and had delayed judgment pending their recommendations.
Williams hinted that the ABCF’s constitution does not cover the incident involving Delanbanque and that changes will be made to the document moving forward.