UCI president Brian Cookson called on predecessor Hein Verbruggen to resign from his position as honorary president of the organisation after a damning report into its failure to address doping in the sport was published yesterday.

Cookson set up the Cycling Independent Reform Commission (CIRC) in January last year to investigate the body’s dealings with doping findings and allegations during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including its handling of claims against Armstrong, who later admitted systematic doping throughout the first part of his career and was subsequently stripped of his seven Tour de France titles.

And it specifically accused former UCI presidents Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid of failing to follow their own anti-doping regulations and not holding Armstrong to the same rules that other riders were expected to follow.

Cookson said: “Given the contents of the CIRC report, I do indeed think that it would be appropriate for Mr Verbruggen to consider his honorary position with the UCI.”

Cookson highlighted an incident in the 1999 Tour de France in which Armstrong was allowed to have a therapeutic use exemption backdated — in clear contravention of UCI rules — as an example of favouritism shown towards the American.

“The UCI clearly prioritised at the time covering up and defending the so-called reputation of the sport rather than catching people who were cheating,” he told Sky News.

“This was a major error of judgement in my view, which led to a lot of problems for cycling.

“To add to that, another problematic element was the (1999) (Emile) Vrijman report which investigated allegations into Lance Armstrong’s use of EPO — and it is clear from the report today that the UCI never had the slightest intention of that report being genuinely independent.

“Both of those things were very damaging and led to a very problematic era for our sport.”