On yer bike: Duelling cycling bodies battle over top spot and $500,000 kitty

From riders atop penny-farthings in the 19th century to the Commonwealth Bank Cycling Classic and the Sydney Olympics, NSW has a rich history of road and track racing.

More than 140 years after the state’s cycling association was formed, however, it is pedalling towards an inglorious ending, mired in a Supreme Court dispute between two entities that both claim to be its board.

Cycling NSW handed over its lease of the Dunc Gray Velodrome at Bass Hill as part of a deal with AusCycling.Credit: Craig Golding

The feud threatens to soak up the nearly $500,000 remaining in the member-based organisation’s now-frozen bank account in legal fees, denying support to local clubs and competitors.

It is less than a month since Australia’s cyclists starred in Paris, winning gold at the velodrome, on the streets of the French capital and on its Olympic BMX circuit. In what was Australia’s most successful Games in terms of gold medals collected, cycling was the country’s second best-performing team behind only swimming.

A world away from the heights of the global multi-sport extravaganza, the courtroom battle for control is a reminder of the dysfunction often lurking just beneath the surface of Olympic disciplines that are cash poor and rely heavily on volunteers.

At issue is the establishment of AusCycling, which in 2020 brought Cycling Australia, the former national federation for road and track racing, together under one roof with BMX and mountain biking, which until then were run independently.

‘This mob is trying to give [AusCycling] our money. Not while I’m around.’

Glenn Vigar

In Australian sport’s largest merger, state affiliates were also rolled into a new centralised organisation designed to consolidate 19 operations into one.

Four years later, however, there continues to be resistance to the streamlined model in Australia’s most populous state, which accounts for 30 per cent of AusCycling’s 56,868 members. The result is a peculiar situation in which two separate groups insist they are the NSW Cycling Committee.

One, fronted by long-time cycling administrator Glenn Vigar, is steadfastly against Cycling NSW being absorbed into the Australian governing body, a process that would see it hand over the balance of its assets and be wound up.

The other, which is recognised as the real board by AusCycling, is chaired by Wollongong cyclist Robert Beretov.

It wants to comply with a vote by members last year to turn over CNSW’s funds – so long as they go into a special account for spending only on road and track cycling in NSW, with the state’s clubs to have the final say on expenditure.

NSW has a history of staging major events, among them the 2022 men’s road race world championships in Wollongong.Credit: Rhett Wyman

The standoff has been going on for more than a year, with Vigar’s board staging two annual general meetings and producing annual reports.

But when it wrote to clubs inviting them to apply for funding grants, the stoush hit top gear last month.

That was a red flag for the Beretov committee, which had Sydney solicitor Steven Mackay rush to the Supreme Court seeking the freezing of the association’s bank account.

According to court documents, it is seeking a declaration that its five members are the only people on the board of the NSW Cycling Federation, the body’s incorporated name, and for a ruling giving it exclusive access to the CNSW account with the Commonwealth Bank.

That is being contested by Vigar, who was named in the action as one of four co-defendants, and has been an opponent of the sport’s organisational reform from the outset.

“We’re in the process of doing what we always said we would, and that is to return the money to the clubs who earned it,” said Vigar, who had retired as chairman in 2020 before returning to the fray last year.

“This mob is trying to give [AusCycling] our money. Not while I’m around.”

Split emerges

In 2021, CNSW agreed to transfer its assets and employees to the nascent AusCycling and give it half of its money, a sum of nearly $600,000. Also ceded was its lease on the Dunc Gray Velodrome at Bass Hill, the track cycling venue at the 2000 Olympics.

The deal was struck when the board was led by former national road race chairman Matt Bazzano, the managing director of Shimano Australia Cycling, the local head of the global bike components company, and under it, the rest of CNSW’s cash was to be relinquished at the end of 2022.

Amid concern about a reduction of racing cyclists and a lack of events in the state, though, the brakes were later hit on sending CNSW’s remaining funds, and a split emerged over what to do with them.

In a letter to clubs, Mackay, who referred to the Vigar group as the “self-appointed alternative board”, said the will of members was clear.

“The actual CNSW board is led by chairman Robert Beretov,” he said. “Whilst the members of the CNSW board do not necessarily believe that [AusCycling] has delivered the entirety of what it promised in its early days, they recognise that their role is to act in the best interests of clubs and in accordance with their wishes.

“In this regard, the clear feedback from clubs is that: CNSW should transfer its funds to AusCycling (with a number of clubs wanting safeguards around how that money is spent by AusCycling), and following that transfer, CNSW should wind up.”

There is about $470,000 in the CSNW account. With solicitor’s and barrister’s charges building up as this power struggle goes to court, there may not be much leftover at the finish line.

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