Cycle referee suspended

Press, 26 November 1979, Page 34

Cycle referee suspended

By

RAY CAIRNS

Mr Colin Bishop, Canterbury’s only international cycling commissaire, or referee, and indeed, the only such official in the South Island, has been suspended from officiating duties.

Though Mr G. D. Reid, the chairman of the Canterbury Track Cycling Committee, was not available for comment yesterday, Mr Bishop said he had been advised by telephone that he had been suspended under rule 78, a regulation which states that a member (of the New Zealand Amateur Cycling Association) who fails to attend an inquiry when requested “shall be fined or suspended.”

The track committee called a meeting, and instructed Mr Bishop to attend, after the meeting which involved the New Zealand team last Sunday. However, Mr Bishop considered he had no need to attend the inquiry, and instead submitted a report on the Denton Park meeting — the racing sort, not

the administrative — to the national council.

There the matter stays as far as he is concerned, said Mr Bishop. “It is a big laugh that a sub-committee of the Canterbury centre consideres it can suspend an official; I consider it has no jurisdiction outside its own committee, and this was something that should have been dealt with by the centre.

“I don’t think I have anything to answer for, and I think the decision is null and void.”

Mr Bishop said he had lodged an appeal against the decision, though it has only been communicated to him verbally, to the national council, “though the feeling here is that I should have done it through the centre. But as a Canterbury centre sub-committee has suspended me, I have nowhere to go, but to the council.”

Mr Bishop also said he believed he was to be invited to the next meeting of the track committee on December 18.