A central tenant of Brian Cookson's tenure as UCI president has been his and the governing body's reform of the WorldTour. In 2017, 10 new events were added to the premier calendar.
While the reforms have been far from plain sailing with politicking and power plays writ large, and stakeholders communicating via the media, Cookson is confident he and UCI Management Committee have struck the right balance. During an informal press conference at the Tour Down Under, dubbed 'Coffee with Cookson', he continually repeated his caveat that the long terms gains of the reform will require patience and possible short-term pain.
"What we are trying to achieve is a balance. Cycling has its traditional heartlands, some of those traditional heartlands have been challenged, we have lost one or two there, so there is massive potential in the rest of the world," an on message Cookson said of the WorldTour expansion into new continents.
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"North America, Asia, here also in Australia with the Cadel Evans event. There has been a lot of interest in the WorldTour to come to these parts of the world. Cycling can't always be just in northern Europe, it has to expand and seek opportunities."
While the number of teams is unchanged for now at 18, the WorldTour calendar has expanded to include events in the UAE, Turkey, USA, and Britain for the first time as the UCI continues its ambition of globalising the sport. Explaining the Tour of Qatar's demise was due to both political and economic factors, Cookson was buoyant when talking about the other new WorldTour events compared to other lines of questions during the 25-minute sit-down, stressing 'balance' and 'adjustment'.
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