Today the UCI - the International Cycling Union - announced the first lists of teams registered as "ProTeam" (formerly ProTour) and Professional Continental teams for the 2011 season. The union also published the ranking of teams which requested a registration based on De bond plaatste daarnaast het klassement van de ploegen die een registratie-aanvraag hebben gedaan op basis van sporting value.

The ProTeam and Professional Continental teams

In its press release the UCI explicitely mentions the first division for the ProTeams and the second division for the Professional Continental teams before indicating which teams have already been granted a licence in each of the divisions. The UCI furthermore indicates in its press release that so far only first division teams with continuing licences which meet the required sporting, ethical, financial and administrative criteria as well as teams seeking to be registered in the second division which have provided dossiers considered to be in compliance, have been registered by the UCI. For the time being the following teams have thus been registered:

• UCI ProTeams (first division)
  - Rabobank Cycling Team (The Netherlands)
  - Garmin-Cervélo (United States)
  - Omega Pharma-Lotto (Belgium)
  - Sky ProCycling (Great-Britain)
• Professional Continental teams (second division)
  - Androni Giocattoli (Italy)
  - Bretagne - Schuller (France)
  - Caja Rural (Spain)
  - Colnago - CSF Inox (Ireland)
  - Europcar (France, the 2011 version of the Bbox Bouygues Telecom team)
  - Farnese Vini - Neri Sottoli (Great-Britain)
  - FDJ (France)
  - Landbouwkrediet (Belgium)
  - Saur - Sojasun (France)
  - Skil - Shimano (The Netherlands)
  - Team Type 1 (United States)
  - Topsport Vlaanderen - Mercator (Belgium)
  - Unitedhealthcare Pro Cycling (United States)

The list of UCI ProTeams will be completed on 20 November, when the UCI Licence Commission will have taken its decision concerning the other teams' registration requests. There'll still be a short period, until 10 December 2010, for the teams which appeal and for those which need to complete their filings, before the list will finally be announced.

The final list and the decision of the Licence Commission will mainly be based on the sporting value of the different teams, as wished for by the organisors of the Grand Tours such as the Tour de France for years. According to the new article 2.15.011b of the UCI rules, the 15 best placed teams will automatically be granted a ProTeam licence (or renewal) (given that they also comply to the ethical, financial and administrative criteria). The teams on the 16th till 20th place will be evaluated by the Licence Commission which will decide which teams can be part of the first division, knowing that only 3 of them will be able to access this division since the maximum number of UCI ProTeams has been decided to be 18. The teams which are under the 20th place are considered not to have fulfilled the sporting criterion for ProTeam status.

The sporting value is determned based on results from 2009 and 2010 by the 15 best riders who will be on the team's roster in 2011, in all events on all the circuits of the UCI International Calendar. It also takes into account the collective value of the team, based on placings in team classifications of stage races on the UCI World Calendar and HC events on UCI Continental Circuits (Europe Tour, Asia Tour, America Tour, ...) during 2010.

Based on this sporting value the following classification has been established and is being used for granting licences based on the above mentioned rules. In this table you'll find, as a comparison, the team's ranking in the UCI world classification at the end of 2010.team

#		# 2010
1	Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project	(-)
2	Rabobank Cycling Team	4
3	Garmin-Cervélo	7
4	HTC-High Road	6
5	Omega Pharma-Lotto	8
6	Lampre-ISD	14
7	Katusha	5
8	Sky ProCycling	15
9	Liquigas-Cannondale	2
10	Saxo Bank SunGard	1
11	Team Radioshack	11
12	Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team	24
13	Pro Team Astana	3
14	Movistar Team	9
15	BMC Racing Team	10
16	Euskaltel-Euskadi	13
17	Geox-TMC	29
18	Quick Step Cycling Team	16
19	Cofidis Le Crédit en ligne	20
20	AG2R	18
21	FDJ	22
22	Saur-Sojasun	27
23	Pegasus Sports	(-)
24	Skil-Shimano	31
25	Acqua e Sapone	23
26	Colnago-CSF Inox	25
27	Europcar	19
28	Androni Giocattoli	17
29	Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator	28
30	Veranda's Willems-Accent	(-)
31	Team Type 1	(-)
32	CCC Polsat Polkowice	(-)
33	Bretagne-Schuller	(-)
34	Farnese Vini - Neri Sottoli	(-)
35	Landbouwkrediet	30
36	UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling	(-)
37	Team Netapp	(-)
38	Team SpiderTech powered by C10	(-)
39	Caja Rural	(-)
40	Colombia Es Pasion-Café de Colombia	(-)
41	De Rosa-Ceramica Flamina	(-)
42	Andalucia Caja Granada	32

(for the 2010 ranking of the Garmin-Cervélo team, the Garmin-Transitions team's ranking is shown since this will be the structure which will continue with the two sponsors)

With the magical cut-off being after place 20, we clearly see that the French teams FDJ and Saur-Sojasun are not able to get the ProTeam status in 2011, just like the new Australian team Pegasus Sports. This team, known in 2010 as Fly V and as a Continental team, tried to skip one step up and immediately get the ProTeam status. According to CyclingWeekly the manager of the team, Chris White, commented this as: so, we'll go for Professional Continental status. As a reminder: this team will have riders like Robbie McEwen, Svein Tuft, Robbie Hunter, Daryl Impey, Christian Knees and Sergey Klimov in 2011.

For Astana, Geox-TMC, Liquigas-Cannondale, HTC-High Road, Movistar Team and Euskaltel-Euskadi, together with FDJ applicants for a licence renewal, the sporting value is enough to get this renewal.
Europcar's request to get back at ProTeam level will not be granted (but with Europcar as the new sponsor this request would most probably have been cancelled anyway for financial reasons), in contrast to Cofidis's request which could be granted by the Licence Commission. Vacansoleil and BMC Racing's request to get up one step will normally be granted, just like the request from the new Luxembourg team which will at least be composed of Fränk and Andy Schleck, Daniele Bennati, Jakob Fuglsang, Linus Gerdemann, Dominic Klemme, Maxime Monfort, Jens Voigt, Fabian Wegmann and Wouter Weylandt.
Brian Nygaard, the manager of this new team, commented the first place in the sporting hierarchy on Twitter: I guess we're hitting the ground running.. while Ken Sommer, responsible for communications in the team, twittered Booooom! No further comment! ...

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: UCI ProTour

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