Now head of the International Cycling Union for 13 months, Brian Cookson may make an assessment of his action. He said he tries to renovate the sport that has been affected by doping cases including the case of Lance Armstrong. He also wanted to change the image of the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) that was much criticized when Pat McQuaid was president. 

"It was because the trust had gone. The Lance Armstrong revelations were bad enough, but there was a widespread suspicion that the UCI might have been in some way complicit in what happened. It all came to a head for me during the 2013 World Cyclo-Cross Championships in Louisville, when Pat McQuaid was booed during a medal ceremony."

"I thought, somebody’s got to do something to try and change this, to change how the UCI is seen by fans. I love cycling, I’m passionate about it. It was terrible to see the governing body perceived like that. Changes had to be made, so I put my name forward."

Upon his election, he wanted to go into action as he tells according Cycle Sport magazine : "I phoned the head of WADA [World Anti-Doping Agency] on my first day. I wanted to assure them that we were both on the same side, and I started rebuilding bridges with other bodies involved in cycling as well."

"The default position between the UCI and any other organisation was a battle. It was a fight, a scrap. Whether it was WADA or [Tour de France organiser] ASO — the very people the UCI should have been working with — it was in a dispute with them half the time. We had to put all that to bed, and a change of leader helped do that."

"I hope I have a different approach to my predecessor. I don’t say Pat [McQuaid] did everything wrong, far from it. He did a lot of good work in the sport. But we have rebuilt a good relationship with WADA now, and we’re getting a good strong relationship with ASO, as well as working hard on a range of reforms."

Now the Irish hope that the UCI is not involved in doping cases: "We are reviewing all our anti-doping procedures, and making the cycling anti-doping foundation completely independent of the UCI. The next thing we’re doing is setting up an independent tribunal for doping cases so that they don’t have to be referred to national federations, so they [the national federations] don’t get themselves into conflict of interest situations."

“The situation now, with the checks and balances we’ve put in, like the anti-doping foundation, means that neither I nor anyone in the UCI gets involved with who gets tested, what teams get tested, and what races are tested. The only time I know we have a positive test is when it’s about to go to the hearing.”

"In any system of justice you have to have a road to redemption of some sort. We can’t reinvent history, but we have to avoid the sport going down that road again. In any walk of life you will get people who try to cheat the system, be they a banker or an accountant or in a sport. What we have to do as an organisation is reduce cheating to a minimum, and deal with it effectively and equitably."