On the day of his reelection to the council of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) for a second four-year term, International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid held a wide-ranging dinner briefing with journalists at the SportAccord convention in St Petersburg.

On the day of his reelection to the council of the Association of Summer Olympic International Federations (ASOIF) for a second four-year term, International Cycling Union (UCI) president Pat McQuaid held a wide-ranging dinner briefing with journalists at the SportAccord convention in St Petersburg.

McQuaid spoke extensively and openly on a number of topics after what have been a roller-coaster 12 months for his federation and his sport.

The London Games, McQuaid said, had been a triumph for cycling. "The sport was at its highest in terms of media coverage and positivity."

Autumn brought the Lance Armstrong affair, which saw the disgraced cyclist found guilty of systematic doping during his career and a subsequent blame game being played by various bodies including the UCI, the US Anti-Doping Association and the World Anti-Doping Association. It is a period that McQuaid described as "a real challenge."

"The period that the UCI has just gone through is probably equal to the period that the IOC went through after Salt Lake [a bribery scandal around the 2002 winter Olympics]," he said.

Although the UCI has set up and executed a wide-ranging stakeholder consultation, with the help of Deloitte, the fallout from the Armstrong affair continues. "It’s not something you can just deal with in 24 hours," McQuaid said.

McQuaid took over the UCI presidency in 2006, having been elected in 2005 - the year of Armstrong's seventh and final Tour de France victory.

The federation has been at pains to refute accusations that it colluded with, or covered up for Armstrong during his dominance of the Tour de France.

McQuaid said that he could not be held accountable for what happened within the UCI before 2005, a 15-year period presided over by Hein Verbruggen, current president of SportAccord and honorary president of the UCI.

"I spoke to IOC colleagues. They encouraged me to keep going, to take the positives and to move on."

Nevertheless, he launched a vigorous defence of his predecessor when asked whether he had considered revoking Verbruggen's honorary role in order to have, at least nominally, a clean break from the past.

"The only thing that can do it is the congress of the UCI," McQuaid explained. "The congress of the UCI gave it to him and only the congress of the UCI can take it away from him.

"I’ve had the same subject mentioned to me today by Bernard Lapasset [the president of the International Rugby Board]. He’s being perceived to be the successor of Hein Verbruggen at SportAccord. I spoke to him about it and said, ‘I know exactly what you’re talking about because I’ve had to do the same thing.’ And I said, ‘well, I did my thing. Hein never told me what to do, or this, that and the other.’ He said, ‘but, your opposition uses it with an attacking objective.’ And that’s what’s happened. Many people who have wanted to attack me have used that as a means of attack. But it’s not been the case.

"When I was elected in 2005, Hein Verbruggen was in charge of the Beijing Games. He had to remain an IOC member to remain in charge of the Beijiing Games according to the IOC charter. That brought him up to 2008. We had to therefore make him a senior UCI official. The only senior UCI official was the president or vice president, so he was made a vice president. He was the vice president between 2005 and 2008, and he came to the meetings as vice president. In 2008 when the Beijing Olympics finished, he did his report for the IOC within six months and he resigned completely from the UCI executive board within six months as well. He hasn’t appeared at the UCI executive board since. And the IOC executive board too.

"I’m not saying Hein Verbruggen doesn’t have an interest in cycling. He spent 30 or 40 years in the sport so he still has an interest in cycling. Those of you who have been to the World Cycling Centre in Aigle, he built that. It’s his legacy to the sport. To be perfectly honest with you, when I look at the legacy he’s left for the sport – and lots of journalists would say the only legacy he’s left is the Lance Armstrong affair – but actually he’s left a huge legacy for the sport, and I have to respect that."

McQuaid said that a number of his colleagues in the IOC had supported him through the turbulence of the last few months.

"I spoke to IOC colleagues who had been through [the Salt Lake City scandal]. They encouraged me, to be honest. They encouraged me to keep going, to take the positives and to move on. Thomas Bach [president of the German Olympic Committee and the favourite to succeed IOC president Jacques Rogge] would be one of them. Thomas has been a good colleague and a good supporter and has encouraged me to keep going. He understands what the UCI is doing; and then people like John Coates [president of the Australian Olympic Committee]. On a more professional basis, somebody like Michael Payne, who was involved in Salt Lake City, has been very supportive too."