The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) announces that the Czech athlete Katerina Nash has been re-elected President of the UCI Athletes’ Commission by her fellow commission members. Her election took place during the first meeting of the renewed commission, organised on 6 December by videoconference due to restrictions in place in numerous countries to fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.
Katerina Nash obtained 59% of the votes, compared to 41% for Colin Lynch (GBR), who was also candidate.
Katerina Nash was elected to the UCI Athletes’ Commission as a representative of the cyclo-cross discipline for the first time in 2017. The commission then elected her President at its meeting held on 12 and 13 December the same year at the UCI headquarters in Aigle (Switzerland). She was re-elected to represent cyclo-cross on the UCI Athletes’ Commission in January 2021.
A former cross-country skier, and specialist in cross-country mountain bike as well as cyclo-cross, Katerina Nash has appeared at five Olympic Games (two winter and three summer). She has won two UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships bronze medals, in 2011 and 2017, as well as one silver (2016) and two bronze (2010 and 2014) in the team relay at the UCI Mountain Bike World Championships. She finished second in the overall classification of the 2019-2020 UCI Cyclo-cross World Cup.
Outside cycling, Katerina Nash has a university degree in business.
The new President of the UCI Athletes’ Commission was coopted onto the UCI Management Committee, the Federation’s executive body which operates under the authority of the Congress, at its meeting in Valkenburg (the Netherlands) in February 2018, before automatically becoming a member as the President of the UCI Athletes’ Commission. This year, she was elected Vice-President of the UCI at an extraordinary session of the UCI Management Committee held on 24 September in Leuven (Belgium).
The President and members of the UCI Athletes’ Commission – which was renewed in 2021 – are elected for a term of four years, until the UCI Congress in Kigali (Rwanda) in 2025.
The commission is composed of 20 members, with each discipline or specialty – cyclo-cross, para-cycling, BMX Racing, mountain bike cross-country, mountain bike downhill, trials, BMX Freestyle, road, track and indoor cycling – being represented by two riders, one man and one woman.
The commission enables the voice of athletes from the different disciplines to be heard by the UCI’s decision-making bodies and facilitates the link between athletes and cycling’s global governing body. It has an advisory role which enables it to submit proposals to the UCI Management Committee. Its field of action mainly concerns the improvement of conditions for the practice of high-level sport, the protection of athletes in all its forms, the promotion of ethics and sportsmanship, information for athletes on significant regulatory changes and the orientation of athletes after their sporting retirement.
During the 2017-2021 period, the commission contributed to numerous major achievements such as the introduction of a minimum salary for women professional cyclists, the establishment of participation gender parity at the Olympic Games from Paris 2024, and the integration of para-cycling races at several events for able-bodied athletes. Members of the commission also contributed to the modification of the status of its President (now automatically a member of the Management Committee), as well as to the development of regulations and calendars for the different disciplines as part of their respective commissions.
The re-elected President of the UCI Athletes’ Commission Katerina Nash declared: “I am delighted and honoured that the members of the UCI Athletes’ Commission have again put their confidence in me. It is great to have our voice heard and I look forward to building on all that we achieved in the last four years. I am excited by the prospect of working with existing members who were re-elected to the commission and new members who will arrive with new ideas and motivation.”
UCI President David Lappartient declared: “I warmly congratulate Katerina Nash for her re-election as President of the UCI Athletes’ Commission. I take this opportunity to highlight her excellent work in this role during her first four-year term, during which she stood up for her peers at the highest international level. I am very happy to be able to continue counting on the precious input of this exceptional woman – who has been a member of the UCI Management Committee since 2018, and UCI Vice-President since September 2021 – for the next four years.”