IT’S UCI ELECTION YEAR
The election for UCI president will take place at the organisation’s annual congress, which is currently scheduled for September, to coincide with the World Championships. The last two, in 2013 and 2017, have been tumultuous affairs. In 2013, Brian Cookson beat the controversial incumbent Pat McQuaid in a chaotic vote. The election used to be a quiet formality, but that year it was rocked by the aftershocks of the Lance Armstrong scandal, and McQuaid was ousted. Four years later Cookson was beaten in turn by David Lappartient after going into the election confident that he’d accumulated enough support from the voting delegates to sail to victory; instead his challenge ran aground when it turned out not everybody who’d promised him a vote had actually voted for him.