Relegating teams "must accept the results" UCI president Lappartient affirms, amidst wave of criticism
Cycling
The UCI have been under fire for months from several teams, managers, riders and fans of the sport due to the promotion/relegation system that's currently set, but UCI President assures that the system will be used as agreed this winter, with two teams likely to relegate to Pro Team level, whilst two others promote to World Tour.
"That's sport. That's not nice when you are relegated, but if you're in football, if you're last in the Premier League, you'll go down to the second league," Lappartient told reporters today, as the UCI announced countless venues for upcoming World Championships, including the 2026 and 2027 Road World Championships, set to take place in Montréal, Canada; and Haute-Savoie, France respectively.
"That's part of sport, you must accept the results. That's difficult, because we know all the efforts of all the teams, but we must also leave the door open for new applicants, for new teams to enter the system." This consists of a three-year ranking in which teams bringing in the points from the respective races in the calendar, with their ten best riders' points counting towards the total. Albeit extremely controversial in 2022 specifically, this was a system agree by all teams taking part years back.
"Can [they] challenge? Of course, but we are confident that our system can be confirmed. This system has been approved four years ago, at the UCI management committee of September 2018 after long discussions - years of discussions - to reach this kind of new system," he stated. "When I was elected in 2017, I said 'we will fix this' and in one year we have been able to reach an agreement by consensus, and it has been approved by unanimity, this system."
Consequently, Israel - Premier Tech owner Sylvan Adams has talked about the likelihood of taking the UCI to court over their relegation. Lotto Soudal also currently sit in a difficult position and it is unlikely that the Belgian team will be able to maintain themselves at World Tour level, whilst Alpecin-Deceuninck and Arkéa Samsic are set for promotion after three years at the top level.
"We took a three-year ranking in order to avoid relegation based only on one year. That was the request of the teams. We went in this way," Lappartient confirmed. "The other point was to give the opportunity for other teams to qualify, and to enter the system, and for it not to be a closed system. For this, the organisers wanted automatic promotion-relegation, the teams wanted stay like they were. And we fixed this with the top 18 teams being WorldTour, whether they're existing WorldTour teams or potentially new applicants."
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- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
- So all those who went to watch, including all from abroad, waled there, spent nothing? Most places hosting events of the sort manage to make it worthwhile. If it was so obviously fruitless, don’t you think by now they’d have run out of hosting candidates? Why do you think the Tour can command such high prices for departure and arrival locations? If it didn’t bring anything locally they’d have to pay to get authorisation to use cities.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
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Best kit at @Wollongong2022 ? 🇪🇷 #Wollongong2022
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