First ProTeam licenses confirmed by UCI
The Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) has announced the first selection of teams confirmed to be awarded with ProTeam licenses for 2011. Omega Pharma-Lotto, Garmin-Cervélo, Rabobank and Sky ProCycling have officially been given
the green light. The remaining teams have been ranked according to the fulfillment of the sporting criteria, which the UCI has confirmed is the primary emphasis of the evaluation of teams for 2011 licenses.
The remaining licenses will be confirmed on November 20, but in the meantime the UCI has released the team rankings based on the results of each team’s top fifteen riders from the 2009 and 2010 road season. Team Sky is ranked in eighth,
while the other three confirmed teams are in the top five. HTC-Highroad stand in fourth behind Garmin and ahead of Omega, while the brand new Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project tops the list ahead of Rabobank.
The UCI stated that the top 15 teams would automatically be granted ProTeam status once they have met the financial, ethical and administrative criteria. The remaining three spots would be given to teams in the top twenty, ahead of
any team below that is not eligible for a ProTeam license, including FDJ, Pegasus and Europcar. Thirteen Pro Continental licenses have also been announced, including two first-time US teams, Team Type 1 and Unitedhealthcare ProCycling.
"We got the official email today, so it has been really exciting for us around the office all morning," said Team Type 1 Director Sportif Vassili Davidenko. "The whole process was very challenging, and we're lucky to have such a great crew here in Atlanta.
Without them there's no way we'd have been able to get through so many different levels of paperwork. They did everything they could to keep us on track and get us through this process."
Tags: