British Olympic Association Chair Sebastian Coe and British cyclist Chris Hoy "have thrown their weight behind" British Cycling President Brian Cookson's bid to become Int'l Cycling Union president, according to the PA. Coe "has written to all the UCI federation chiefs expressing his support for Cookson," who is challenging the incumbent, Ireland's Pat McQuaid, in an election that has already "become a bitter contest." Hoy has said Cookson would be a "fantastic president" to take the sport into a new era. The election contest "is still in dispute after McQuaid failed to attract a nomination from either his home country, Ireland, or Switzerland, where he lives" (PA, 9/4). VELO NATION reported Cookson "has secured the vote of another delegate, with two of the three Oceania votes now pledged to him." Cycling Australia recently said that "it would support him." New Zealand "has now also come on board, with its board announcing that it had also decided to endorse him after listening to a presentation by him in Sydney at the weekend." The third Oceania federation, Fiji, "is yet to make its intentions known" (VELO NATION, 9/5).
OLYMPIC QUESTION: ROAD reported McQuaid said that cycling "will not be represented in the IOC if Cookson is elected." If McQuaid is ousted "he will lose the post on the IOC" that he has held since '10, and would not automatically be "replaced with another UCI delegate." McQuaid: "The statement [from Coe] doesn't change the fact that Brian has no influence within the IOC and no one within the cycling family is going to be fooled into thinking otherwise" (ROAD, 9/5).
