As usual at the end of the year, the licence commission of the International Cycling Union (UCI) gave its verdict a few weeks ago, thus awarding the UCI WorldTeam level to 18 teams, but also awarding the Pro Continental status for the teams of the second division and the Continental status for the teams of the third division.

In this article you'll mainly find the list of UCI WorldTeams but also some information about the two other divisions!

The UCI WorldTeams get a licence for one or more years and these licences are awarded based on sports, financial, ethical and administrative criteria which are evaluated every year, even if a team still has a valid licence. If you're interested in how this all works, you can read the article The selection procedure of the UCI ProTeams explained - infographic! which I published in 2012 about this.

The main difference between a team which still has a valid licence and a team which has a licence which expires or which didn't have a licence before, is that the last ones systematically have to present their file in front of the Licence Commission while the ones with a valid licence can simply be "registered" without having to present to the commission (as long as they are in line with the evaluation criteria).

The 18 UCI WorldTeams for 2016

On 6 October, the UCI announced a list of 17 teams which had requested a UCI WorldTeam licence for 2016. Among these 17 teams, 11 easily got awarded this status on 9 November because they still had a valid licence and were in line with the different criteria. The 6 others, but also the Dimension Data team (which was so far known as MTN-Qhubeka) which has been added to the list, had to present their file in front of the licence commission in order to get it accepted, but they all succeeded and in 2016 we'll thus see the following 18 UCI WorldTeams. The teams shown in bold characters are the teals which had their licence renewed for 2016 or which have a licence for the first time, the other teams still had a valid licence for 2016.

• AG2R La Mondiale (licence valid until 2016)
• Astana Pro Team* (licence valid until 2016)
• BMC Racing Team
• Cannondale Pro Cycling Team (anciennement Team Cannondale-Garmin)
• Dimension Data (formerly known as MTN-Qhubeka)
• Etixx-QuickStep
• FDJ
• IAM Cycling
• Lampre-Merida
• Lotto Soudal
• Movistar Team (licence valid until 2016)
• Orica GreenEDGE (licence valid until 2016)
• Team Giant-Alpecin (licence valid until 2016)
• Team Katusha
• Team LottoNL-Jumbo
• Team Sky (licence valid until 2016)
• Tinkoff (formerly known as Tinkoff-Saxo)
• Trek Factory Racing

* for Astana, the UCI simply stated on 9 November that after a 4 months review period by the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne (ISSUL), it has been concluded that the team answered all specific expectations which were required to be met after the different doping cases which concerned the team at the end of 2014

What does a UCI WorldTeam licence mean for a team?

Let's finally remind that even though the first division teams in cycling are now called UCI WorldTeams, this licence allows them to participate in all races of the UCI WorldTour calendar (where they are invited by default and obliged to participate).

Furthermore, they can, when invited, participate in UCI Europe Tour races of the 1.HC or 2.HC classes (up to a maximum of 70% of the teams participating in such a race) or in classes 1.1 or 2.1 (up to a maximum of 50% of the teams participating in such a race), in races of the UCI America Tour, UCI Asia Tour, UCI Oceania Tour or UCI Africa Tour of the classes 1.HC, 2.HC, 1.1 or 2.1 (up to a maximum of 50% of the teams participating in such races).

And the Continental Pro teams?

The second division of teams, the Continental Pro teams, now (since 3 December when the last 4 teams were added) now also knows its complete list. Written in bold are the new teams in this list:

Androni Giocattoli
Bardiani CSF
Bora-Argon 18
Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
CCC Sprandi Polkowice
Cofidis, solutions crédits
Cult Energy-Stölting Group
Delko Marseille Provence KTM (formerly known as Team Marseille 13 KTM, Continental Team)
Direct Energie (formerly known as Team Europcar)
Drapac Professional Cycling
Fortuneo-Vital Concept (formerly known as Bretagne-Séché Environnement)
Funvic Soul Cycles-Carrefour
Nippo-Vini Fantini
One Pro Cycling
Roompot Oranje Peloton
Roth-Škoda
Rusvelo
Team Novo Nordisk
Tharcor (formerly known as Southeast or even Yellow Fluo)
Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
UnitedHealthcare Professional Cycling Team
Verva ActiveJet Pro Cycling Team
Wanty-Groupe Gobert

The number of Continental Pro teams thus goes up from 20 in 2015 to 23 teams in this second division in 2016.

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: UCI ProTour

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