tuesday 11 December 2012 at 00h07

While you might have discovered all secrets of the selection procedure for UCI ProTeams on velowire.com yesterday, it was this Monday that the UCI announced the verdict handed over by the licence commission.

While everyone thought the choice for the last three place would be amongst the 4 teams placed from the 16th to the 20th places (except from Europcar which wasn't a candidate), these thoughts were based on nothing and were ignoring that the other criteria -as you've seen in yesterday's article- have the same weight as the sports criterion!

In this article you'll discover the final list of UCI ProTeams for 2013, with Katusha Team being left out and Team Argos-Shimano being the new entrant!

The 18 UCI ProTeams for 2013

On 1 November (announced on the 2nd), the first teams which had satisfied all criteria (among the 15 first placed teams for the sports criterion and having met the financial, ethical and administrative criteria) and which still have a valide licence, saw their licence being confirmed by a registration for 2013:

• Astana Pro Team (until 2013)
• BMC Racing Team (until 2014)
• Cannondale (until 2014; formerly known as Liquigas-Cannondale)
• Lampre – Merida (until 2013; formerly known as Lampre-ISD)
• Omega Pharma – Quick Step Cycling Team (until 2014)
• ORICA GreenEDGE (until 2013)
• Sky Procycling (until 2013)
• Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team (until 2013)

Furthermore, we learned today that on 16 November, the licence commission decided to award the registration to one more team:

• Movistar Team (until 2013)

There were thus at most 9 remaining licences to be attributed among 10 candidate teams. Today it was announced that 3 out of 4 teams which had requested for registration (the teams which thus still had a valid licence for 2013) obtained their registration. These were the following 3 teams:

• FDJ (until 2014; formerly known as FDJ-BigMat)
• Lotto Belisol (until 2015)
• RadioShackNissan (for this team it's not clear what really happened since at the end of 2011 the UCI announced having awarded a licence for 2012 and this year the international federation doesn't mention this team among the awarded licences but simply as a registration (as if the team still had a valid licence)

What can be clearly seen here is that Katusha Team is missing since the registration of its licence which was still valid until 2015 got refused. The team clearly fulfilled the sportive criterion since, even though we don't know which ranking it had (since the algorithm for calculating the score is secret and not only takes into account UCI WorldTour results), we do know that the Russian team was 2nd (behind Team Sky) in the overall team ranking of the UCI WorldTour of which the individual winner was no one else than Joaquim Rodriguez, the leader of the Russian team!

It thus now turns out with this decision that the team didn't meet one or more of the three other criteria which were necessary for its registration as a UCI ProTeam for 2013!

The list is completed by 6 teams which were awarded a licence, either as a renewal or as the very first UCI ProTeam licence in the history of the team:

• AG2R La Mondiale (renewed until 2016)
• Euskaltel Euskadi (renewed until 2016)
• "Former Rabobank" (the name of this team will be announced on Thursday, renewed until 2014)
• Garmin Sharp (renewed until 2014)
• Team Argos–Shimano (new licence, until 2016)
• Team Saxo – Tinkoff (renewed until 2014)

This alltogether brings us to the following complete list of 18 UCI ProTeams for 2013:

What does a UCI ProTeam license mean?

As a reminder, the first division cycling teams are called UCI ProTeams (even though the UCI mentions in its rules, in §3 and more specifically in article 2.15.009, a "UCI WorldTour Team licence"), and they can thanks to this license participate in all races of the UCI WorldTour calendar (where they're invited by default and are obliged to participate).

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

door Thomas Vergouwen
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this publication is published in: UCI ProTour | Cycling general (except Tour de France)

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