Less than 24 hours after being elected to replace Ireland's Pat McQuaid at a chaotic election here, Cookson announced that Egyptian Mohamed Azzam, Australian Tracey Gaudry and Frenchman David Lappartient will be his chief lieutenants.

They are, respectively, head of the African, Oceania and European Confederations and replace South Korean Hee Wook Cho, Italian Renato Di Rocco and Portugal's Artur Lopes, who had all served in the roles under McQuaid.

Gaudry and Lappartient had both been high-profile supporters of Cookson during his successful campaign. 

Gaudry is the first woman to be appointed to the role and Tweeted: "To be elected by peers as @UCI_cycling VP represents a great honour, a commitment by all to a progressive future, and much good work ahead!"

Cho, Di Rocco and Lopes will continue to be members of the UCI Management Committe, however. 

But the appointments made today are unlikely to be the last announced by Cookson and the position of Christophe Hubschmid, the UCI's director general, must be under threat after he was so closely linked to McQuaid during the election campaign.

"This is a new administration, I want to emphasise that, we will be making some changes," said Cookson.

"I've already appointed three new vice-presidents with the agreement and support of the Management Committee this morning.

"We're going to take the UCI in a new direction.

"There's a lot of work to be done and there's a lot of changes to be made. I won't have all the answers to everything within a few days but we're certainly going to start this journey in the right way."

David Lappartient, head of the European Cycling Union, is one of three new International Cycling Union vice-presidents appointed by Brian Cookson

Cookson also plans to move swiftly to dispel fears that the fact McQuaid will have to resign as a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) following the end of his eight-year reign as head of the UCI will damage cycling's position at the Games.

"The first thing I'll be doing is putting in a call to the President of the IOC to make sure we have a good, strong relationship," Cookson said.

Thomas Bach is likely to greet Cookson warmly after the 61-year-old from Lancashire was backed during the campaign by Sebastian Coe, chairman of the British Olympic Association and a close friend of the German's.

"The decision taken by the UCI represents a turning point for the sport of cycling, and we congratulate Brian Cookson on his election," said Coe.

"It was with vision, determination and a genuine commitment to work in partnership that Brian was able to lead the transformation of British Cycling, and I am confident he will do the same for the UCI." 

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