The Power List: The 50 most influential people in cycling

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Cyclingnews Power ranking — Presenting Cyclingnews' Power List of the 50 most influential people in cycling(Image credit: Getty Images)

Power isn't necessarily derived from one element. It's often a combination of wealth, influence, control and inspiration. Here at Cyclingnews, we have compiled our list of the 50 most powerful people in the sport, and it incorporates individuals from various communities: from riders to managers, sponsors, governors and advocates for change and progress, it's an inclusive run-down on who shapes pro cycling.

While our top 50 is comprehensively pulled together from different bodies and organisations, we realise that professional cycling has a long way to go if it wants to reach parity in terms of gender and race. Our list, subjective as it is, represents where we feel cycling currently stands, rather than where it should be. We hope that our list kicks off a wider debate than just who should or shouldn't be top, and opens up discussions on where cycling can improve.

The explosion of gravel racing and riding in recent times has thrust a new wave of athlete onto the scene. At the head of the pack is Strickland, who is not only one of the dominant riders, but also a shrewd operator when it comes to sponsorship and marketing himself. The gravel racer breaks away from the typical pro rider, who signs his or her contract with a team and effectively becomes an employee. Instead, the gravel racer is a self-employed and much-empowered athlete who has far greater responsibility.
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Philippa York first made a name for herself as Robert Millar – one of the most successful riders on the planet in the 1980s – but her influence these days goes much further. As a spokesperson for diversity, inclusion and the LGBTQi community, she transcends the sport, and when it comes to analytically writing about the sport, her work often appears in the Guardian, Rouleur and, of course, Cyclingnews.

It was always unfair to compare Axel Merckx's racing career with that of his father, but the son has gone on to launch and maintain one of the, if not the, most distinguished development teams in the world. As a spotter of talent, Merckx junior is second to none, and the graduates of the Hagens Berman Axeon family include several WorldTour elite riders. Merckx has effectively created the blueprint for development teams.
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Six months on the sidelines at the end of 2019 may have taken some of the shine off Van Aert’s star, but back in July the Belgian was on his way to becoming a leading light in the peloton. Since then, Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu van der Poel have earned the right to have higher places on this list, but Van Aert remains both an extraordinary talent and a Classics star in the making.
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Berkhout forms part of the larger SEG agency in the Netherlands, and his clients include riders such as Daniel Martin, Niki Terpstra and Bauke Mollema. But it's the SEG Racing team, and their new e-racing element, that sets Berkhout apart from most other agents. Running a development team opens up new avenues and opportunities to produce new talent, while the e-racing element will one day end up being more than just a fad.

The director of Trinity Sports Management has built a small empire as a rider agent, with clients that include Geraint Thomas, Rohan Dennis and Nicolas Roche. McQuaid – son of former UCI president Pat McQuaid – also managed Team Wiggins before it folded, but remains as the manager of Tom Pidcock. There's an events side to the Trinity business, too, but McQuaid's strength comes from the fact that he works with so many teams.

A two-time masters world champion, Dr. Veronica Ivy, previously known as Rachel McKinnon, is a transgender athlete and an advocate for transgender inclusion and participation in sport as a human right. An ethics specialist and professor of philosophy, Dr. Ivy has provided her perspective on transgender women competing in sports to an international audience, and featured in the Washington Post and the New York Times, and on CBC Sports and Sky News.
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The former Polish athlete recently replaced Craig Reedie as president of the World Anti-Doping Agency. Within cycling, anti-doping is in flux, with testing being transferred from the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation to the International Testing Agency. WADA may not have a direct hold over cycling, but it sets the rules for the sport to follow, and therefore Banka exerts influence on its credibility.

Vandenhaute heads up one of the most business-savvy race organisations, which has been running the Tour of Flanders and other spring Classics since 2010, selling out VIP tents at eye-watering prices. He may have handed over the day-to-day running of the organisation to new CEO Thomas Van den Spiegel, but he still calls the shots, and his influence in Belgian sport as a whole recently surged when he became president of Anderlecht football club.

Ayesha McGowan has been advocating for better representation for women of colour in the bike industry for years, using her voice to support and speak up for increased diversity inside the sport's brands, organisations, events, teams and media. McGowan is a professional road cyclist for Liv Racing, and she is inspiring, influencing and leading the next generation of African American women in cycling.
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Kathryn Bertine is an advocate for equality in cycling and a documentary filmmaker of Half The Road, which explores corruption and sexism in sports. As an activist, Bertine started Le Tour Entier, and, together with Marianne Vos, Emma Pooley and Chrissie Wellington, set up a successful petition sent to the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) and Christian Prudhomme calling for a women's Tour de France. With 97,307 signatures, La Course by Le Tour de France was born.
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The member of the Bahraini royal family was the man behind the creation of the Bahrain McLaren team in 2017. The main funding comes from state-run companies, while the McLaren Group is itself owned by Bahrain sovereign wealth fund Mumtalakat. At the heart of it all, pulling the strings of one of the biggest WorldTour teams, is Prince Nasser. The Bahrain regime has faced allegations of human rights abuses, with several organisations claiming the regime is responsible for cases of torture, disappearances, and abuse, all of which have been denied by Prince Nasser.

The 1997 road world champion Alessandra Cappellotto is the manager of the Cyclistes Professionnels Associés (CPA) women's section – an international association that has received recognition for being the riders' representatives within the UCI. In this role, Cappellotto has a seat at the boardroom table to discuss important issues surrounding women's cycling with important stakeholders and UCI president David Lappartient.
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23. Mathieu van der Poel (rider, Alpecin-Fenix)

The Dutchman – the son of Adri van der Poel and the grandson of Raymond Poulidor – is already one of the superstars of world cycling, and his career trajectory is still in its infancy. The 25-year-old's talents see him widely described as a 'phenomenon', and they stretch across road, cyclo-cross and mountain bike. All that, combined with his impulsive racing style, will ensure he'll be one of the top draws for sponsors, fans and race organisers over the next decade.
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Kelsey Erickson is keeping the sport of cycling safe through her role as the SafeSport and Anti-Doping Director at USA Cycling by providing education, services and advice through the programme, which is being adopted and modelled by other national federations. She has also spent a decade working in international anti-doping, and developed education interventions and whistleblowing policies and procedures.
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She is the reigning world champion and the most dominant and versatile rider in the women's peloton today because of her powerful time trial, climbing ability, and audacious and victorious solo attacks, which will go down in cycling's history books. She is as much a leader inside the peloton as she is outside, using her world-class status to shine a light on inequalities and to promote positive change in women's cycling with more live TV, bigger races and better salaries.
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Marianne Vos' professional cycling career spans 14 years and 12 world championship titles across three disciplines: road, cyclo-cross and track. Although she took a two-year hiatus, she has slowly come back to showcase her dominant winning style that has captivated fans and brought women's cycling to a mainstream audience for over a decade. She is a natural leader who guides, inspires and commands respect by setting the highest standards of professionalism, and it's for these reasons that she has been elected as a member of the UCI Athletes' Commission and as the riders' representative on the UCI Road Commission.
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Few, if any, of the rider agents in cycling wield as much power as Acquadro. The Italian has a client list that includes Egan Bernal (Team Ineos), and in fact almost every high-profile cyclist in the peloton. His relationship with Movistar may have soured in recent years, but cycling's true super-agent could fill several Grand Tour rosters with his clients and still have world-class riders to spare.

Chris Froome is closer to the end of his career than the start, and hasn't won a Grand Tour since 2018, but the four-time Tour de France winner has etched his place in the history of the sport thanks to his unrivalled stage-race career since 2011. While Team Ineos teammate Egan Bernal represents the present and future, Froome is still both the past and present. Whether his future remains at Team Ineos is still unclear but the fact remains that he would walk into every WorldTour team and improve their roster.
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Highly regarded as the Billie Jean King of cycling – and not just by Outside Magazine – Iris Slappendel is on a mission to change the culture of the sport so that women can pursue it as a career in a safe environment with equal rights, opportunities and a livable salary. She is the co-founder of The Cyclists' Alliance – a riders' association that has a singular goal of establishing fairness for women through its range of support services.
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Power and influence come in a variety of forms. For some, those attributes present themselves through wealth or material prosperity, but there are other forms of power within sport. After being denied opportunities, Justin Williams has created his own path into the sport, and he’s done it through determination, ability and resolve in the face of undeniable obstacles. His Legion of Los Angeles team has become an inspiration for a generation of African American and black athletes, and his fight to redress the inequality in cycling is both a beacon for where the sport lies and where it should be aiming for equality.
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In her 14-year career at the UCI, Amina Lanaya has risen from head of legal services to the sport governing body's first female director general. She oversees the day-to-day business operations – everything from competition calendars and marketing to communications and finances – but she also has a stated goal of bringing gender parity among athletes, in the governance of cycling and at the UCI headquarters.
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Brailsford's control at British Cycling may have ended, but his stature within cycling remains solid. At Team Ineos, he runs the most successful Tour de France team in recent history, and their vice-like grip on the maillot jaune shows no sign of softening. The Fancy Bears scandal and UKAD investigations into his team perhaps took the gloss off, but in terms of resources and influence as a team manager, he's leagues ahead of the rest.
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Marie-Odile Amaury is at the head of Groupe Amaury – a wealthy family business founded by Emilien Amaury and later run by her late husband (Émilien's son), Philippe Amaury. Cycling is its primary focus, with the Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) running the Tour de France along with two of the sport's five 'Monuments' – Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – and more recently acquiring complete control of the Vuelta a España.

Amaury and her two adult children, Aurore and Jean-Etienne – newly-appointed joint Chief Executive Officers of Groupe Amaury – own 100 per cent of the company. This family is steeped in three generations of power and influence in the world of cycling. They have so much of it that they have been criticised for monopolising the sport and not sharing the wealth. This perceived fierce determination to protect their assets - which has been noted in the company's other ventures - effectively dictates the economics of professional cycling, and it's a tone that is set from the top.