AusCycling likely to go ahead as BMX pledges its support
The AusCycling initiative to unite Australia’s cycling disciplines is set to go ahead.
At a BMX Australia (BMXA) Special General Meeting on Monday evening, six of the national body’s eight member states voted in support of AusCycling. In doing so, BMXA joined Mountain Bike Australia (MTBA) in endorsing AusCycling, ensuring the initiative now has two out of three disciplines in support — enough for the formation of AusCycling to proceed as planned.
MTBA voted in support of AusCycling in late November, but BMXA looked destined to vote against the proposal. Up until February 13, three BMX state bodies — Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia — had indicated they would vote against AusCycling, leaving BMXA without the necessary six votes. But a re-vote at BMX New South Wales last week left the state in support of AusCycling, ensuring BMX’s national body would endorse the initiative as well.
While AusCycling is set to go ahead, thanks to the support of MTB and BMX, questions still remain over the fate of road and track. Cycling Australia (CA) has a Special General Meeting scheduled for March 27 at which its state and territory constituents will vote on whether to join the new entity.
At this stage, CA is very unlikely to get the six of eight votes it needs for road and track to join AusCycling as a whole. Cycling New South Wales, Cycling Tasmania and WestCycle have all been outspoken against the proposal in its current form, and all seem unlikely to budge in the time before the CA meeting.
So assuming road and track doesn’t join AusCycling, what happens then? It’s still unclear, but it remains likely that the ‘yes’ states and indeed the ‘yes’ clubs within ‘no’ states and territories will have the ability to join AusCycling of their own accord.
“I think, over time, members and states would leak across into AusCycling,” Cycling Australia CEO Steve Drake told CyclingTips last November. “They will see the advantages of a unified, cohesive management team. And that’s the real difference. They have the ability to improve the efficiency of the management of the sport and improve the outcomes for clubs and members.
“Potentially all of those clubs, plus the states that have already voted ‘yes’, would move straight across to AusCycling. I’m not saying that isn’t messy and mechanically I haven’t really looked at how that would work, but I can’t see why it can’t.”
The post AusCycling likely to go ahead as BMX pledges its support appeared first on CyclingTips.