Has Cookson kept his promises?

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Newly elected UCI President Brian Cookson speaks(Image credit: Graham Watson)

It is twelve months since Brian Cookson – at the end of a hotly contested election – became president of the UCI. As part of the election process the 63-year-old produced a manifesto detailing the changes he intended to oversee if elected president. That manifesto contained a series of commitments from Cookson, changes he promised to bring about if elected president of the UCI. Just how well has Cookson performed in the past 12 months when it comes to keeping his word?

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The short-form analysis of progress on these pledges would have to be that a lot has been done, but there is a lot still to do. Obvious progress has been made in some areas, such as the creation of the CIRC. In other areas there has been no progress, particularly with regard to the promised minimum wage for the women's peloton. And in some areas it could be argued that the UCI has taken retrograde steps, here particularly with regard to transparency and the UCI's recent decision to no longer publicly announce doping sanctions.

On the horizon, though, are a couple of potential storms, one major, one minor. The minor involves the South African Institute for Drug-Free Sport (SAIDS) and the Daryl Impey case, with the UCI not yet having indicated whether they intend to appeal the SAIDS decision to the CAS. The major is the more serious case of Roman Kreuziger's Athlete Biological Passport case, with the Czech Olympic Committee (COC) having cleared their rider of any anti-doping violations, raising questions about the efficacy of the ABP.

Delivery: The Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) was established in January. Little is known about the commission's operations. Lance Armstrong has publicly disclosed that he has met with the CIRC, La Gazzetta dello Sport claimed that Mauro Santambrogio spoke with the commission, and the CIRC has already been involved in the sanctioning of Francesco Reda. At present, the CIRC report is still promised before the year end.

In general on the transparency issue, a number of retrograde steps seem to have been taken, making the UCI less transparent than it was a year ago. These range from the manner in which Pieter Zevenbergen stepped down from the the ethics commission through to the manner in which the doping sanctions are now not being announced. Specifically on the issue of financial transparency, Cookson – writing on his personal website before the election – queried why the UCI's annual report was not published within six months of the year end (ie by June) instead of nine (September). While the 2013 annual report was briefly (accidentally) uploaded to the UCI website in July, it has still not officially been made available.

Commitment: Increase the budget of the World Cycling Centre.
Commitment: Create structures and incentives for a series of development initiatives between federations.
Commitment: More World Cycling Satellite Centres.
Commitment: Regain the UCI's status within the Olympic Movement and review Olympic and Paralympic qualification criteria to ensure the best athletes from around the world are represented.
Commitment: More international events for Para-cyclists.

Delivery: From La Course by Le Tour de France through to the Friends Life Women's Tour women's cycling did receive some new events, although these were offset by the loss of older events from the calendar. How much credit the UCI can claim for the creation of these events is debatable, particularly in regard to La Course, which was the product of the campaign group Le Tour Entier (of which Cookson was initially somewhat critical). While both La Course and the Friends Life race were covered by broadcast media, even in the case of La Course this was generally done as a highlights package, many broadcasters opting not to broadcast the race live.

Delivery: It is one of the ironies of cycling today that, while the elite men are currently considering imposing a ceiling on rider's pay, in the women's peloton there isn't even a floor, with no visible progress having been made in the delivery of the promised minimum wage. Given that prior to standing for election Cookson personally opposed the idea of a minimum wage for women this is, perhaps, not surprising. Worse than having no minimum wage, though, the UCI has recently been accused of not even supporting the efforts of riders to be paid what little has been promised to them, with accusations of non-payment of riders' salaries by one team apparently being ignored by the UCI.