UCI President David Lapartient defended the controversial WorldTour relegation system for professional cycling, warning teams that they "must accept the consequences" and declaring that he is "confident" that the sport's governing body can withstand potential legal challenges. The court stated.

The system, which limits the World Tour to 18 teams and is based on a three-year ranking, has come under fire in recent weeks and months as several teams have fought to avoid relegation to the second division of professional teams and the possibility of losing their entry to the Tour de France and other major races They have been under fire.

Sylvain Adams, boss of the Israeli Premier Tech team, which currently sits in last place among the 20 WorldTour teams, denounced the system in a recent interview and threatened to take the UCI to court; EF Education-Easy Post boss Jonathan Vaughters similarly warned that relegation would mean the death of his team, while Movistar boss Eusebio Unzué denounced the points system as "madness and unfair."

Cycling News recently revealed that pressure and panic had built up to the point that the UCI was considering a last-minute withdrawal of 20 teams from the World Tour from 2023 to 2025. But at a press conference at the UCI Road World Championships in Australia, Lapartiento was adamant: two teams will be dropped from the WorldTour in 2022, and the UCI will not be able to compete in the WorldTour until 2025. [That's the sport. It's not nice to be relegated, but if you are in soccer, if you are at the bottom of the Premier League, you will drop to the second division," he insisted.

"That's part of the sport, you have to accept the consequences. Knowing the efforts of all the teams, it is difficult, but we must keep the door open for new applicants and new teams to enter."

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The threat of legal action is high. Several endangered teams are gathering to lobby the UCI to expand the WorldTour and thus the peloton size of major races. If they are not successful, legal action may be the next step.

Meanwhile, Adams, whose team appears doomed, has publicly stated his intention to take the UCI to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and has even suggested closing the team and leaving the sport.

"We can challenge them. Of course, but we are confident we can confirm our system," Lapartiento countered on Thursday.

Lapartiento was keen to point out that the team had a seat at the table when the current system was negotiated and "unanimously" agreed upon.

"This system was approved four years ago, at the September 2018 UCI Management Committee meeting, after a long discussion, years of discussion, to arrive at such a new system," Lapartiento said.

"When I was elected in 2017, I said, 'We will fix this,' but in one year we were able to reach a consensus by consensus, and it was unanimously approved, this system."

Even if unanimously approved, any legal challenge from the demoted teams, COVID-19 pandemic can be cited as a force majeure, i.e., an unpredictable and uncontrollable change in circumstances that could be grounds for invalidating the UCI rules.

LaPartient did not directly address the matter, but suggested that the three-year system was intended to protect against extraordinary circumstances.

"We made the three-year system to avoid relegation for only one year. That was the request of each team. And that was the request of each team," said director La Partiente.

"Another point was to give other teams the opportunity to qualify and participate in this system and not make it a closed system. To that end, the organizers wanted automatic promotion and relegation, and the teams wanted to maintain the status quo. And they solved this by allowing the top 18 teams to join the World Tour, whether they were existing World Tour teams or potential new entrants."

The organizers also wanted to "allow the top 18 teams to qualify for the World Tour, and the top 18 teams to join the World Tour, whether they were existing World Tour teams or potential new entrants.