The reform of professional cycling: the latest news

Added: monday 08 December 2014 at 22:41:00

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The last time we provided you with information about the the reform of professional cycling 2015-2020 was in April 2014, following the publication of the first edition of the "reform info" newsletter.

Since then, we had the right to a complete radio silence about this topic, even though this is of interest for all actors of professional cycling, including the fans in the first place.

In the most recent communication by the UCI we didn't get any further details, but velowire.com was able to find some further information anyway, which you can find exclusively in this article.
The reform of professional cycling 2015-2020 goes on in the shadow
In March, the first edition of the newsletter "Reform Info" was published and sent out to organisrs, riders and their different associations and other representatives, and the promiss was made that the newsletter will accompany each step of the reform, all the way long its implementation.

Since then, the UCI renewed its website (which was about time) and the newsletter completely vanished on this new website. Apparently there hasn't been any new edition since.

The title of the most recent press release of the UCI, UCI WorldTour seminar welcomes the return of credibility to the sport, and marks the beginning of the implementation of the reform of men's elite road cycling probably gave some hope to many people to see the UCI provide the most recent news about the reform of professional cycling. This was however not the case since the press release about the seminar of the UCI WorldTour 2014 organised on 4 and 5 December in Montreux, in Switzerland, simply mentioned the main topics which have been discussed during the seminar, without providing any further details.

It does however explain that a new standard of operational guidelines for teams (the "cahier des charges") will be implemented, to ensure that all riders are properly supported and supervised and that in 2014 already eight teams conducted a trial implementation of these standards.
Furthermore, the press release indicates that strict organizational standards will also be implemented for the organisors starting next year.

Concerning the reform itself, the press release simply insisted on its importance, adding that there are still a number of elements that need further consultation and that no decision should be rushed. We also see that the UCI insists on the importance of the base of the pyramid of cycling, something I already discussed in the first article by velowire.com about the reform, in the interview with Guillaume Di Grazia.

Another interesting topic in the press release was that the UCI will be revising the applicable process and regulations to facilitate the integration of (...) technological innovations which have been tested in 2014, thanks to case by case rule changes, for example with the use of an on-board camera by Jérémy Roy in the Tour Poitou-Charentes this year:

This doesn't tell us anything about the reform however ...
The latest details about the reform of professional cycling 2015-2020
We were however able to get our hands on some details and the first of them concerns the different divisions which should exist in terms of teams and in terms of races.

There would be three divisions defined as follows:
- 1st division "WorldTour": about 120 race days for the UCI WorldTeams (currently called UCI ProTeams even though many abusively call them WorldTour teams as of today)
- 2nd division "ChallengeTour": about 120 race days for the UCI ChallengeTeams (the current Continental Pro teams)
- 3rd division Continental Circuits: with no limitation on the number of race days for the Continental teams and the development teams of the UCI WorldTeams (these two types of teams are the current Continental teams)
for the "WorldTour" and "ChallengeTour", the UCI indicates that these terms may not be final yet

Based on this definition of the 3 divisions we directly see that the development teams of the teams in the 1st division are no longer, as was the case in the previous version, part of the 1st division but are now in the 3rd division.

Concerning the participation in the races, this changes a few things as well and the rules should be as follows:

This gives quite some arrows, much more than previously, and we thus see that the participation in the races in lower divisions has been broadened. In order to make this a little bit more easy to understand, you can also refer to the following presentation of the same information:

The second detail we can share with you today is about the classifications which will apply to the reformed calendar. As a summary, the following things would change compared to today:
- a classification of the WorldTeams and of the ChallengeTeams and a promotion/relegation system between those two classifications/divisions
- the creation of world classifications (individual and per nation) over a rolling period of 12 months
- the creation of individual classifications and classifications per nation over a rolling period of 12 months for the continental calendars
Here are the classifications as planned now:

That's all the information we can share as of now about the reform of professional cycling, awaiting an official communication by the UCI!
by Thomas Vergouwen
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