UCI president David Lappartient has formally announced his candidacy to replace Thomas Bach as the president of the International Olympic Committee. Lappartient is among seven candidates for role, with the election to take place during the 143rd IOC Session in Greece in March.
Lappartient’s Olympic ambitions have long been rumoured, and speculation about a presidential bid intensified last year when he took over as president of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee (CNOSF), a role he was permitted to carry out alongside his UCI duties.
The Frenchman remained coy about his IOC candidacy as recently as this weekend, when he was interviewed by L’Équipe at the French Olympic ‘parade of champions’ on the Champs-Élysées.
“I invite you to read the IOC's press release on Monday, as they will announce the names of the candidates at that time. I won't comment before Monday,” Lappartient said. “What I have said is that I am interested in continuing to serve the Olympic movement in the broadest sense of the term in my international federation, at the CNOSF and at the IOC. Where I fit in, we'll see.”
The deadline for individuals to confirm their candidacy was midnight on Sunday. On Monday, the IOC announced that Lappartient was among the seven candidates, along with World Athletics president Sebastian Coe and Juan Antonio Samaranch, the son of the former IOC president.
Zimbabwe sports minister Kirsty Coventry is the only female candidate. The list of candidates is completed by International Gymnastics Federation president Morinari Watanabe, Prince Feisal Al Hussein of Jordan, and International Ski Federation president Johan Eliasch.
The incumbent IOC president Thomas Bach was first elected to an eight-year term in 2013 and re-elected to a second, four-year term in 2021. The German confirmed at the Paris 2024 Olympics that he would not seek another term when his mandate expires in March.
The seven candidates to succeed Bach will present their programmes to IOC members at a private meeting in Lausanne in January before the election takes place during the IOC Session from March 18-21 in Greece.
Lappartient was elected president of the French Cycling Federation in 2009 and was elected president of the European Cycling Union (UEC) four years later.
At the Bergen World Championships in 2017, Lappartient defeated incumbent Brian Cookson to be elected president of the UCI, and he was re-elected without a contest in Leuven in 2021. His current term as UCI president expires in 2025.
Lappartient has yet to publish his candidature document, but his IOC campaign will likely highlight the UCI’s organisation of a quadrennial, multi-discipline cycling World Championships, the first of which took place in Glasgow last year.
When oligarch Igor Makarov’s presence on the UCI Management Committee was questioned in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, meanwhile, Lappartient took care to insist that the UCI stance reflected that of the IOC.
“We’re aligned with the IOC position, which is that Russian teams and riders are not to take part in any competitions. However, the Russian or Belarus Olympic Committees are not suspended, so neither are their national federations and their officials,” Lappartient told Cyclingnews in 2022, when Makarov had been named on lists of individuals sanctioned by the Australian, Canadian and British governments following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Makarov was removed from the British sanctions list earlier this year after he renounced his Russian citizenship in 2023 and became a citizen of Cyprus. He remains a member of the UCI Management Committee.
