UCI Vice President, David Lappartient, has told Cyclingnews he has no current plans to announce himself as a candidate for the UCI Presidency in 2017. However the Frenchman refused to rule out such a possibility with continued speculation surrounding his working relationship with current UCI President Brian Cookson.
Before heading to Qatar for this year’s World Road Championships, Lappartient called a press conference at the French national velodrome near Paris, where he announced that he would not stand for a third term as the President of the French Cycling Federation. He has had the position for almost eight year, and will step aside in March next year. That would leave him with roughly six months to organise a campaign before the UCI presidential elections later that year. Cookson has already announced that he would stand for a second term after being elected in 2013.
“I had a press conference on Friday at the national velodrome to just confirm that I would stand down as President of the French Cycling Federation in March next year and not seek re-election. That’s the end of my current term,” Lappartient told Cyclingnews on Friday evening.
“I will be a candidate to carry on as the President of the European Cycling Union but I said nothing about the UCI. Of course, as I’ve always said, I’d be interested in one day becoming a candidate for the head of the UCI but some of the press have taken the wrong conclusion from what I’ve said. I’ve not said that I will be a candidate for 2017. For the moment it’s not on my programme.”
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A difficult relationship with Cookson
For what it’s worth Cookson said similar remarks before he too decided to stand for election, having previously backed Pat McQuaid.
The Englishman’s relationship with Lappartient has been strained since Cookson was elected as UCI President in Florence in 2013.
The pair have disagreed over the future of the sport and the relationship between the governing body, the Tour de France organisers ASO and the WorldTour teams. Lappartient, as part of the UCI management Committee, even opposed part of Cookson’s programme over reforms and aligned himself with ASO’s position of having a relegation system for teams.
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