New WorldTour races could suffer under revamped UCI rules

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The UCI today without fanfare published sweeping changes to its WorldTour regulations that roll back many of the reforms to the selection of the WorldTour teams and to the race calendar.

With the changes, the UCI created a catch 22 for new races on the WorldTour calendar. While the rules allow for the desired three-year licences that were part of the reforms, changes introduced today require events to maintain 10 WorldTour teams on the start line, despite the WorldTour team participation being entirely voluntary.

The UCI's new rules at the same time remove incentives for WorldTour teams to compete in the new races by basing the team rankings that are used to determine WorldTour registration for the next season only on events which were on the WorldTour in 2016.

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The changes were introduced just weeks before the first new WorldTour event, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race which, together with the Abu Dhabi Tour, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Strade Bianche, Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Tour of Turkey, Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn - Frankfurt, the Amgen Tour of California, Prudential RideLondon & Surrey Classic and the new Chinese race Gree – Tour of Guangxi make up the batch of new WorldTour races.

Keeping 10 WorldTour teams is less of a problem for long-standing events like Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Dwars door Vlaanderen, but will be a burden for far-flung events like Tour of Turkey which attracted just two WorldTour teams last year, and the newest race, the Tour of Guangxi.

The participation rules for the WorldTour were also amended to include invited Pro Continental teams and national team of the organising country, but with the caveat that the events allowing national teams would be determined by the Pro Cycling Council.

• Licences only last through end of 2018
• For 2019 lowest rank team is out unless only 16 applicants
• Added organisational standards to licence review including medical certificates for doctors and more.
• Team rankings for the next season WorldTour only consider 'historic' WorldTour races (on 2016 WT calendar)
• Team rankings will include Pro Continental signing's points from historic WT races
• PCC will decide how WT teams are chosen from 2019.
• New WorldTour races must maintain at least 10 WT teams each year or risk being dropped from the calendar.
• All WorldTour teams must be invited to all WT races, but aren't obliged to race new events.

You can read more at Cyclingnews.com

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