Cookson keen for answers on predecessors

New UCI president Brian Cookson will aim to establish quickly whether his predecessors were embroiled in covering up the use of performance-enhancing drugs.

Cookson hopes to soon announce an agreement with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) on the framework and delivery of the investigation he promised after deposing Pat McQuaid as head of cycling’s world governing body.

A top priority is discovering whether McQuaid, UCI president from 2005 to 2013, and the Irishman’s predecessor, Hein Verbruggen, were complicit in doping practices which have blighted the sport. Both men have repeatedly and vigorously denied wrongdoing.

Travis Tygart, the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) whose investigation into the United States Postal Service team resulted in the downfall of Lance Armstrong, stated earlier this year that he believes the Texan has proof the UCI was complicit in his drug use.

So determined was Cookson that evidence be preserved that in the minutes after his election in Florence on September 27, he instructed IT equipment and documents from the UCI headquarters in Aigle, Switzerland be seized and stored.