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The 18 UCI WorldTeams for 2016 and the other teams

Added: tuesday 29 December 2015 at 05:42:00
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    The 18 UCI WorldTeams for 2016 and the other teamsAs 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.

    • France AG2R La Mondiale (licence valid until 2016)
    • Kazakhstan Astana Pro Team* (licence valid until 2016)
    • United States BMC Racing Team
    • United States Cannondale Pro Cycling Team (anciennement Team Cannondale-Garmin)
    • South-Africa Dimension Data (formerly known as MTN-Qhubeka)
    • Belgium Etixx-QuickStep
    • France FDJ
    • Switzerland IAM Cycling
    • Italy Lampre-Merida
    • Belgium Lotto Soudal
    • Spain Movistar Team (licence valid until 2016)
    • Australia Orica GreenEDGE (licence valid until 2016)
    • Germany Team Giant-Alpecin (licence valid until 2016)
    • Russia Team Katusha
    • The Netherlands Team LottoNL-Jumbo
    • Great-Britain Team Sky (licence valid until 2016)
    • Russia Tinkoff (formerly known as Tinkoff-Saxo)
    • United States 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

    The 18 UCI WorldTeams 2016

    What does a UCI WorldTeam licence mean for a team?

    UCI WorldTourLet'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:

    Italy Androni Giocattoli
    Italy Bardiani CSF
    Germany Bora-Argon 18
    Spain Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
    Poland CCC Sprandi Polkowice
    France Cofidis, solutions crédits
    Denmark Cult Energy-Stölting Group
    France Delko Marseille Provence KTM (formerly known as Team Marseille 13 KTM, Continental Team)
    France Direct Energie (formerly known as Team Europcar)
    Australia Drapac Professional Cycling
    France Fortuneo-Vital Concept (formerly known as Bretagne-Séché Environnement)
    Brasil Funvic Soul Cycles-Carrefour
    Italy Nippo-Vini Fantini
    Great-Britain One Pro Cycling
    The Netherlands Roompot Oranje Peloton
    Switzerland Roth-Škoda
    Russia Rusvelo
    United States Team Novo Nordisk
    Italy Tharcor (formerly known as Southeast or even Yellow Fluo)
    Belgium Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise
    United States UnitedHealthcare Professional Cycling Team
    Poland Verva ActiveJet Pro Cycling Team
    Belgium 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.

    by Thomas Vergouwen
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Comments

Currently 1 comments!

  1. très belle représentation de la diversité des équipes internationales , très bon
    choix des équipes "UCI Wold Team pour 2016" , saison qui sera une fois de plus intéressante à suivre

    | melsen | friday 01 January 2016 at 22:53:17

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