A perfect shot. Re-elected on Sunday February 24 for four years at the head of the French Cycling Federation, David Lappartient did it again a week later. But in the meantime climbing a handful of additional steps. At 39, the Breton was elected on Sunday March 3 as president of the European Cycling Union (UEC).
For the first time since the creation of the continental institution, 23 years earlier, two candidates sought the presidential chair, left vacant by the Pole Wojciech Walkiewicz: David Lappartient and Andreï Tchmil, 50 years old, the former world number one, current president of the Moldovan Federation. To decide between them, 46 of the 48 member countries of the UEC had delegated one or more representatives to Paris, to the headquarters of the French National Olympic and Sports Committee.
The vote looked uncertain. It wasn't. David Lappartient received 34 votes, or nearly 74% of the vote, against 12 for Andreï Tchmil. A success which also allows the French leader to join the International Cycling Union (UCI) as a legal member.
Newly elected, David Lappartient has drawn up the broad outlines of his program. At the top of the list, the desire to place national federations at the heart of the development of cycling, including the professional sector, the establishment of real solidarity between large and less large federations, finally the ambition to promote access services and equipment to all European federations. Above all, the new president of the UEC intends to be a source of proposals to the UCI. A wish that he will not have to repeat in front of the boss of the supreme cycling institution: Pat McQuaid, its president, was in fact in the audience, Sunday March 3, during the elective general assembly of the UEC.
