2011 UCI Pro Tour Teams and what it means for us?

UCI announced which are the 18 teams that will be able to participate at the 2011 UCI Pro Tour.

This list is very important in many ways, of course regarding the UCI ranking (see 2011 UCI Pro Tour calendar here), but also which teams can already know which ones can participate at the 3 greatest Tours, but also which cycling jerseys will be good to stock for retailers, etc...

Now the result already hint at which of the 22 teams will be participating at the Tour de France 2011.

See details below list.

1- Team Leopard - Trek (LUX) / 2011-2014
2- BMC Racing Team (USA) / 2011-2014
3- Garmin-Cervélo (USA)
4- Euskaltel-Euskadi (ESP) / 2011-2012
5- Katusha (RUS)
6- HTC-Highroad (USA) / 2011-2014
7- Lampre-ISD (ITA)
8- Liquigas-Cannondale (ITA) / 2011-2014
9- Omega Pharma-Lotto (BEL)
10- Quick Step Cycling Team (BEL)
11- Movistar Team (ESP) / 2011-2013
12- Rabobank Cycling Team (NED)
13- Pro Team Astana (KAZ) / 2011-2013
14- Saxo Bank SunGard (DEN)
15- Sky ProCycling (GBR)
16- Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team (NED) / 2011-2013
17- Team RadioShack (USA)
18- AG2R (FRA)

Now, how the licence to participate at the Pro Tour is calculated?
UCI takes in account the best performance of the top 15 riders of any teams over the previous 2 seasons, but also the team financial status and conditions. So it is NOT only riders performance, it is also teams performance and situation.

The N.1 team is the one that still has no official name or sponsor (great marketing by the way!), the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project which includes the Schleck brothers and some other top riders.

If you follow the races, you'll know that 22 teams can participate at the prestigious Tour de France race.
So, 4 teams have to perform their best to receive an invitation to the race.
But the fairness is not equal to all.
You see, there are 5 pro French Teams, and now if you look at the list above, you can see there is only one team which can officially enter the Tour de France 2011 race.

You may expect that 3 other french teams will receive an invitation to the Tour 2011, so it leave only 1 invitation left for an international team to get his ticket for the TDF 2011.
Geox-TMC (Sastre, Menchov...) got the most potential to be in the Tour De France 2011.

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Tour de france Calendar 2011