Cookson Aims to Restore Trust in UCI Presidential Manifesto

British Cycling President Brian Cookson has unveiled his manifesto to become the next President of the International Cycling Union (UCI), with his main aim to restore trust and change a sport that has suffered from controversy in recent times.

In his ‘Restoring Trust, Leading Change’ manifesto, Cookson said he wants to rebuild trust in the UCI and transform anti-doping in cycling following the Lance Armstrong doping scandal.

Cookson also said he wants to grow the sport across the world, develop women’s cycling, overhaul elite road cycling and strengthen the sport’s credibility in the Olympic Movement.

Speaking about his pledges, Cookson said: “I believe the most important challenge for the new President is to restore trust in the UCI, and most importantly to rebuild people’s faith in the way that anti-doping is dealt with.

“We need to give people reasons to believe that the future will be different from the past. We must build a culture of trust and confidence.

“If elected, my first priority will be to establish a completely independent anti-doping unit, managed and governed outside of the UCI and in full cooperation with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

“This unit would be physically and politically separate from the UCI, responsible for all aspects of anti-doping, and report to a board totally independent from the UCI.”

Public feud with WADA ‘absurd’

Cookson, who was speaking at a press conference at the Hotel Radisson Blu Ambassador in Paris, just a few steps away from where the UCI was founded in 1900, also pledged to end the UCI’s public feud with WADA and other anti-doping agencies, calling the arguments ‘absurd.’

“It is absurd that a sport that has suffered so much from doping has been in open conflict with the very people it should be working in partnership with,” said Cookson.

Cookson is the only candidate running against current President Pat McQuaid who has been head of the UCI since 2006.

McQuaid has come under increased pressure following the Armstrong controversy, where the former Tour de France winner was stripped of his record seven titles and banned from cycling for doping offenses.

Voting for the new President will take place in September at the UCI Congress at the World Championships in Florence.

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