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Union Cycliste Internationale

The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI; French


pronunciation:  ​[ynjɔ̃ siklist ɛ̃tɛʁnasjɔnal]; English:
Union Cycliste Internationale
International Cycling Union) is the world governing
body for sports cycling and oversees international
competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle,
Switzerland.

The UCI issues racing licenses to riders and enforces


disciplinary rules, such as in matters of doping. The UCI
also manages the classification of races and the points
ranking system in various cycling disciplines including
road and track cycling, mountain biking and BMX, for
both men and women, amateur and professional. It also
oversees the World Championships.

Headquarters

Contents Abbreviation UCI


Formation 14 April 1900
History
Type Sports federation
World championships
Records Headquarters Aigle, Switzerland
Rainbow jersey Region Worldwide
served
Secretariat
Presidents President David Lappartient
Main organ Congress
Controversies
Helmet use in road racing Affiliations International Olympic
Bribery and doping Committee
Doping and defamation lawsuits Website UCI.org (https://www.uci.or
Sufferance of an international law violation g/)
Turkmenistan
Disciplines
Road racing
Men
Women
Track cycling
Para-cycling Track
Cyclo-cross
Mountain bike racing
BMX racing
Trials
Indoor cycling
Membership
Continental confederations
National federations
See also
References
External links

History
UCI was founded in 1900 in Paris by the national cycling sports organisations of Belgium, the United
States, France, Italy, and Switzerland. It replaced the International Cycling Association (ICA) by setting up
in opposition in a row over whether Great Britain should be allowed just one team at world championships
or separate teams representing England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Britain found itself outflanked and it
was not able to join the UCI – under the conditions the UCI had imposed – until 1903.[1]

There were originally 30 countries affiliated to the union. They did not have equal voting power and some
had no vote at all. Votes were distributed by the number of tracks, or velodromes, that each nation claimed.
France had 18 votes, the highest number, and Germany and Italy 14 each. Britain had eight, a number the
writer Bill Mills said was acquired "by including many rather doubtful grass tracks."[1]

In 1965, under the pressure of the IOC (the Olympics was then an amateur event), the UCI created two
subsidiary bodies, the International Amateur Cycling Federation (Fédération Internationale Amateur de
Cyclisme or FIAC) and the International Professional Cycling Federation (Fédération Internationale de
Cyclisme Professionnel or FICP). The UCI assumed a role coordinating both bodies.

The FIAC was based in Rome, the FICP in Luxembourg, and the UCI in Geneva.

The FIAC was the bigger of the two organisations, with 127 member federations across all five continents.
It was dominated by the countries of the Eastern bloc which were amateur. The FIAC arranged
representation of cycling at the Olympic Games, and FIAC cyclists competed against FICP members on
only rare occasions. In 1992, the UCI reunified the FIAC and FICP, and merged them back into the UCI.
The combined organisation then relocated to Aigle, close to the IOC in Lausanne.

In 2004, the UCI constructed a 200-metre velodrome at the new World Cycling Centre adjacent to its
headquarters.

In September 2007 the UCI announced that it had decided to award ProTour status for the first time ever to
an event outside of Europe; the Tour Down Under in Adelaide, Australia. The announcement followed
negotiations between UCI President Pat McQuaid and South Australian Premier Mike Rann.[2]

In 2013 Tracey Gaudry became the first woman appointed as vice president of the UCI.[3]

World championships
The UCI organises cycling's world championships, administration of which it gives to member nations. The
first championships were on the road and on the track. They were allocated originally to member nations in
turn, on condition the country was deemed competent and that it could guarantee ticket sales.[1] A nation
given a championship or series of championships was required to pay the UCI 30 per cent of ticket receipts
from the track and 10 per cent from the road. Of this, the UCI kept 30 per cent and gave the rest to
competing nations in proportion to the number of events in which it competed. The highest gate money in
this pre-war era was 600 000 francs in Paris in 1903.[4]

There were originally five championships: amateur and professional sprint, amateur and professional road
race, and professional Motor-paced racing. The road race was traditionally a massed start but did not have
to be: Britain organised its road championship before the war as a time trial, the National Cyclists Union
believing it best to run races against the clock, and without publicity before the start, to avoid police
attention. Continental European organisers generally preferred massed races on circuits, fenced throughout
or along the finish to charge for entry.

Records

The original records were on the track: unpaced, human-paced and mechanically paced. They were
promoted for three classes of bicycle: solos, tandems and unusual machines such as what are now known
as recumbents, on which the rider lies horizontal. Distances were imperial and metric, from 440 yards and
500 metres to 24 hours.[1] The UCI banned recumbents in competitions and in record attempts on 1 April
1934. Later changes included restrictions on riding positions of the sort that affected Graeme Obree in the
1990s and the banning in 2000 of all frames that did not have a seat tube.

Rainbow jersey

The winner of a UCI World Championship title is awarded a rainbow jersey, white with five coloured
bands on the chest. This jersey can be worn in only the discipline, specialty and category of competition in
which it was awarded, and expires on the day before the following world championship event. Former
champions are permitted to wear rainbow piping on the cuffs and collar of their clothing.

Secretariat

Presidents

Controversies

Helmet use in road racing

For decades, professional road cyclists refused to wear helmets. The Union Cycliste Internationale
The first serious attempt by the UCI to introduce compulsory headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland
helmet use was the 1991 Paris–Nice race, which resulted in a
riders' strike, and the UCI abandoned the idea.[5]

After the death of Andrei Kivilev in the 2003 Paris–Nice, new rules were introduced on 5 May 2003,[6]
with the 2003 Giro d'Italia being the first major race affected. The 2003 rules allowed for discarding the
helmets during final climbs of at least 5 kilometres in length;[7] subsequent revisions made helmet use
mandatory at all times.

Bribery and doping


The UCI was accused of accepting a bribe in the 1990s to introduce the keirin, a track cycling race, into the
Olympics. An investigation by the BBC claims that the UCI was paid approximately $3,000,000 by
Japanese sources to add the race to the Olympic programme, something denied by the UCI.[8]

When Floyd Landis confessed to using performance-enhancing drugs throughout his career in May 2010,
he alleged that the UCI had accepted a bribe from Lance Armstrong to cover up an EPO positive after the
2001 Tour de Suisse.[9]

Discussing doping in 2012, UCI president Pat McQuaid emphasised the fact that his organisation was "the
first entity to introduce blood tests, the first sport to introduce the test for EPO".[10]

In November 2013, Armstrong settled a lawsuit with Acceptance Insurance Company (AIC). AIC had
sought to recover $3 million it had paid Armstrong as bonuses for winning the Tour de France from 1999–
2001. The suit was settled for an undisclosed sum one day before Armstrong was scheduled to give an oral
deposition under oath. In a sworn, written deposition for the lawsuit, Armstrong stated, "Armstrong has not
paid or offered to pay someone to keep his or others' doping a secret. However, Armstrong has, on
occasion, provided benefits or made contributions to many people and institutions, some of whom may
have been aware of, or suspected Armstrong's use of performance-enhancing drugs and banned methods.
Armstrong never provided any such benefits or contributions with the intent for it to be a payoff to keep
doping a secret."[11][12]

Doping and defamation lawsuits

The UCI has sued or threatened to sue several cyclists, journalists, and writers for defamation after they
accused it of corruption or other misdeeds related to doping.[13] Many, though not all, of these suits are
heard in the Est Vaudois district court of Vevey, Switzerland[14]

In 2002 UCI sued Festina soigneur Willy Voet over claims in his book Breaking the Chain.[15] In 2004 the
UCI won the case,[16] and in 2006 won the appeal.[16] Voet had made various claims about UCI and
Verbruggen's behavior related to the Laurent Brochard Lidocaine case at the 1997 UCI Road World
Championships.[17]

In 2006, according to Cycling News, the UCI contacted Greg LeMond after an interview he did in 2006
with L'Equipe, and threatened to sue him for defamation. LeMond mentioned the UCI-commissioned
Vrijman report, as well as Operacion Puerto, and called the body "corrupt".[13]

Another lawsuit was by Hein Verbruggen against WADA Chief Dick Pound in Swiss court regarding his
comments about doping and the UCI.[18] The lawsuit was settled by the parties in 2009.[19]

In 2011, the UCI sued Floyd Landis in Switzerland after Landis accused the body of several misdeeds,
including the aforementioned alleged coverup involving Lance Armstrong and the 2001 Tour de Suisse. In
2012 Cycling News reported that a District Court had ruled for UCI against Landis.[20]

In 2012 UCI president Pat McQuaid and former president Hein Verbruggen, as well as the UCI itself, sued
journalist Paul Kimmage in Switzerland for defamation. In 2013, the President of Cycling Federation of
Russia called the UCI Ethics Committee to investigate Pat McQuaid actions after the UCI Licence
Commission denied team Katusha a place in the 2013 WorldTour - the action which was promptly
reversed.[21] Kimmage had been a racer and had a long history of investigating doping in the sport,
including a book and, more recent to the suit, articles for the Sunday Times and L'Equipe which discussed
doping and UCI.[22] Greg LeMond,[23] David Walsh and others voiced their support for Kimmage and a
legal defense fund was set up to assist him.[24][25][26]
Sufferance of an international law violation

Under approval of the UCI, the Free Rate Downhill Race took place in May 2015 on Crimea,[27] an
internationally recognised Ukrainian territory which was annexed by the Russian Federation in March
2014. By officially overseeing an international competition with Russian license on the Ukrainian
peninsula, the UCI was the first and only international sports governing body which undermined the
territorial integrity of Ukraine. Yet, in the aftermath of this "scandal of sports and international law"[28] the
UCI negotiated with the Cycling Federation of Ukraine and, in November 2015, announced to remove the
Free Rate Downhill Race officially from the UCI international calendar.[29]

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan′s authoritarian leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was awarded the highest award of the
Union Cycliste Internationale for his country’s commitment to the sport.[30][31]

Disciplines

Road racing

Men

On top of having organized the Road World Championships since 1921, from 1989 until 2004, the UCI
administered the UCI Road World Cup, a season-long competition incorporating all the major one-day
professional road races. In 2005 this was replaced by the UCI ProTour series which initially included the
Grand Tour road cycling stage races (the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a España) and a wider
range of other one-day and stage races. However, the three Grand Tour races withdrew from the series, and
in July 2008 all the major professional teams threatened to quit the series, putting its future in doubt.[32] The
ProTour was replaced as a ranking system the following year by the UCI World Ranking, which added the
three Grand Tours, two early season stage races, and five more one-day classics to the 14 remaining
ProTour events.

To expand the participation and popularity of professional road bicycle racing throughout the globe, the
UCI develop a series of races collectively known as the UCI Continental Circuits for each region of the
world.

Women

The highest level teams in women's road cycling are the UCI Women's Teams.

The UCI has supported elite level competition for women since 1959 including the crowning of a Women's
World Cycling Champion (Road Race) and beginning in 1994, honoring a Women's World Time Trial
Champion at the women's time trial event. Since 2012 UCI Women's teams compete at the World
Championships in the women's team time trial event

Since 1998, the UCI Women's Road World Cup has served as a season-long competition of elite-level one-
day and stage race events.
Track cycling

The UCI Track Cycling World Championships for men and women offers individual and team
championships in several track cycling disciplines. The UCI Track Cycling World Cup serves as a season-
long competition of elite-level.

Para-cycling Track

The UCI Para-cycling Track World Championships for men and women offers individual and team
championships in several track cycling disciplines.

Cyclo-cross

Each UCI-sponsored event feeds into the season-long competition known as the UCI Cyclo-cross World
Cup. In addition, a series of single-day events are held each year to determine the Cyclo-cross World
Champion at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships.

Mountain bike racing

In mountain bike racing, the UCI Mountain Bike & Trials World Championships is the most important and
prestigious competition each year. This includes the disciplines of cross-country and downhill. In addition,
this event consists of world championship events for bike trials riding. In 2012 the first cross-country
eliminator world championship was held in Saalfelden.[33]

The UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is a series of races, held annually since 1991.

At the 2011 World Championships held in Champéry, Switzerland the UCI announced a controversial new
sponsorship deal with the previously unheard of RockyRoads Network.[34]

BMX racing

The season-long competition is known as the UCI BMX Supercross World Cup and the UCI BMX World
Championships serves as the one-day world championships for BMX racing (bicycle motorcross) cycling.

Trials

Unlike other types of cycling disciplines, trials is a sport where the main factors are the stability and the
control of the bike in extreme situations where speed also plays an important role.

The first UCI Trials World Championships took place in 1986.[35] Fourteen years later, in 2000, the UCI
Trials World Cup made its debut.[36] The most World Champions titles have been won by riders from
Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. The UCI Trials World Youth Games is the most
important international event for boys and girls under 16 years old, the first edition of which took place in
2000.[37]

Indoor cycling
The UCI sponsors world championships for artistic cycling and cycle ball at an annual event known as the
UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships.

Membership

Continental confederations

The national federations form confederations by continent:

Asian Cycling Confederation – ACC


Union Européenne de Cyclisme – UEC (European Cycling Union)
Oceania Cycling Confederation – OCC
Confederación Panamericana de Ciclismo – COPACI (Pan American Cycling
Confederation)
Confédération Africaine de Cyclisme – CAC (African Cycling Confederation)

National federations

See also
The Cyclists' Alliance

References
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2. "ProTour Heads Down Under", Cycling News, 28 September 2007
3. "Gaudry Q&A: Reflecting on the UCI vote with its first female vice president -
VeloNews.com" (https://velonews.competitor.com/2013/10/news/gaudry-qa-reflecting-on-the
-uci-vote-with-its-first-female-vice-president_304830). 2 October 2013.
4. The Bicycle, 16 September 1942, p7
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archive.org/web/20160304062947/http://oldsite.uci.ch/english/news/news_2002/20030312_
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Bruyneel" (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/landis-confesses-to-doping-implicates-armstro
ng-and-bruyneel). Cyclingnews.com. Retrieved 28 July 2012.
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11. Schrotenboer, Brent, "Lance Armstrong named names under oath (https://www.usatoday.co
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532825/)", USA Today, 10 April 2014
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11/sports/11macur-amstrong-doc.html)", New York Times, 10 April 2014
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gainst-voet) Anthony Tan, cyclingnews.com, 20 May 2006, Updated: 20 April 2009, retr 2012
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2012, retr 2012 10 13
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(https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/makarov-responds-to-mcquaids-insinuations/).
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g-chiefs-spin-the-wheels-of-justice-3003080.html), Irish Independent, 29 January 2012,
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23. Sport Saturday Greg LeMond interview (http://media.newstalk.ie/podcast/67851/popup)
Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20121009055522/http://media.newstalk.ie/podcast/67
851/popup) 9 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine, newstalk.ie, 2012 October 6, retr 2012
10 13
24. UCI provides clarification regarding its case against Kimmage (http://www.cyclingnews.com/
news/uci-provides-clarification-regarding-its-case-against-kimmage), 2 October 2012,
Cycling News, retr 2012 10 13
25. Kimmage humbled by defense fund support (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kimmage-hu
mbled-by-defense-fund-support), Daniel Benson, Cycling News, 23 September 2012
26. Kimmage receives UCI subpoena (http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/kimmage-receives-uci
-subpoena), Cycling News, 20 September 2012, retrieved 2012 10 13
27. Послезавтра в Крыму стартует мировая гонка FreeRate DH (http://ru24news.ru/news/
crimea/sport/6398-poslezavtra-v-krymu-startuet-mirovaya-gonka-freerate-dh.html) Archived
(https://web.archive.org/web/20150925055759/http://ru24news.ru/news/crimea/sport/6398-p
oslezavtra-v-krymu-startuet-mirovaya-gonka-freerate-dh.html) 25 September 2015 at the
Wayback Machine (On the day after tomorrow the World Race FreeRate DH on Crimea is
going to start) ru24news.ru (19 May 2015). Retrieved 23 September 2015.
28. Denis Trubetskoy, Radrennen auf der Krim. Stille Annexion (https://www.faz.net/aktuell/spor
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Crimea. Tacit annexation) FAZ (23 September 2015). Retrieved 23 September 2015.
29. Russia was not given to "Annex" the Yalta race (http://allsportsbook.ru/russia-was-not-given-
to-annex-the-yalta-race/) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20151208051442/http://allsp
ortsbook.ru/russia-was-not-given-to-annex-the-yalta-race/) 8 December 2015 at the
Wayback Machine allsportsbook.ru (12 November 2015). Retrieved 5 December 2015.
30. "The President of Turkmenistan Awarded with UCI Certificate" (https://business.com.tm/post/
3931/the-president-of-turkmenistan-awarded-with-uci-certificate). Business.com. 4 July
2019.
31. "The UCI just gave its highest award to this dictator" (https://cyclingtips.com/2020/06/the-uci-
just-gave-its-highest-award-to-a-dictator/). CyclingTips. 11 June 2020.
32. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20080802171758/http://afp.google.com/article/
ALeqM5hR3PvasJtiNrdSGTLQe8-JMs-8mQ). Archived from the original (http://afp.google.co
m/article/ALeqM5hR3PvasJtiNrdSGTLQe8-JMs-8mQ) on 2 August 2008. Retrieved 17 July
2008.
33. "Archived copy" (https://web.archive.org/web/20120517034949/http://www.saalfeldenleogan
g2012.at/de/rennen/cross-country-eliminator/). Archived from the original (http://www.saalfel
denleogang2012.at/de/rennen/cross-country-eliminator/) on 17 May 2012. Retrieved 15 April
2012. 2012 Eliminator UCI World Championship
34. "UCI World Cup heading for a Rocky Roads?" (https://web.archive.org/web/2011102016531
3/http://dirt.mpora.com/news/uci-world-cup-heading-rocky-road.html). Archived from the
original (http://dirt.mpora.com/news/uci-world-cup-heading-rocky-road.html) on 20 October
2011. Retrieved 1 September 2011.
35. "Home" (https://www.uci.org?type=FILE&id=ODIxMzI). UCI.
36. "Home" (https://www.uci.org?type=FILE&id=ODMxODM). UCI.
37. "Home" (https://www.uci.org?type=FILE&id=ODMxODY). UCI.

External links
Official website (https://www.uci.org/)
UCI YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/ucichannel/)

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