Former UCI president Brian Cookson has hit back at criticism of his management of the WorldTour by Pat McQuaid, claiming that the 2017 WorldTour was the "most successful in the competition's history.”
Cyclingnews has revisited the history and workings of the WorldTour in a special WorldTour Week series of features, speaking to former UCI President McQuaid who was closely involved in the development of the WorldTour, new UCI Management Committee member Bob Stapleton, who is hoping to create unity and new wealth in the sport, and new UCI President David Lappartient who has some fresh ideas on the structure of professional cycling’s leading race series.
McQuaid openly criticized the new, enlarged WorldTour introduced by Cookson for the 2017 season after he defeat McQuaid to become UCI president.
"It's a complete mess now," McQuaid said of the 37-race series, that added the Abu Dhabi Tour, the Tour of California, the Tour of Turkey and the Tour of Guangxi amongst 10 new races.
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"There could have been one or two races added. It is a WorldTour, and any race that comes in should come because they're world-class races or they're in very strong strategic areas like China that are important for the sport.
"In adding all of those races it showed me that there was no vision or strategy within the UCI to be doing that. I put that down to the president and the director general [then Martin Gibbs] who didn't have a proper strategy for professional cycling.”
Cookson was defeated by Lappartient for the UCI presidency at the Bergen World Championships but defends his work on the WorldTour. He claims he tried to find a balance between protecting tradition and international development.
An out of date concept
What will Lappartient do?
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