uci protour

The UCI ProTour is a system of a set of professional cycling teams and cycling races, in which all of these teams are required to, and guaranteed to, participate. This system is new to 2005 and in many ways replaces the UCI World Cup series, which ended at the end of the 2004 season. The ProTour includes the three grand tours, namely the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana. It also includes most of the former UCI World Cup races, such as Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. The ProTour licenses are given to 20 teams, which sponsors must commit to 4 years of sponsorship. The exception is the Phonak team, which is given only a 2-year license due to previous doping allegations.

History

The UCI, which is the governing body of competitive cycling, has had different series of races at different times. Recent examples include the Super Pernod Prestige series of the 1960s and 1970s, in which points were awarded in a series of races and the winner of the overall points classification is given an award at the end of the season. This series was then replaces by the UCI World Cup series which ran until 2004. The winner of the last three World Cups was Paolo Bettini. The ProTour was designed to replace the World Cup series to address several reasons:

The grand tours were not part of the UCI World Cup series
The ProTour is meant to follow the formula of the F-1 series
Different riders and different teams target different types of races, making direct comparisons during competition difficult
Sponsorships tend to last only a very few number of years
Many teams have financial difficulty in paying their riders and staff members
Several teams have been plagued by doping issues

The UCI lobbied the organizers of the grand tours to participate in the ProTour, and was successful in obtaining their agreement despite prior disagreements and threats to completely pull out of the ProTour. The ProTour has been criticized for fear of not having a system in place for a timely upgrade and downgrade of teams from/to the lower-tier Continental Series.