2008 Professional race teams

2008 Professional race teams are divided into three groups by the World Governing body of cycling, the UCI - ProTour, Pro-Continental and Continental, but things are not that simple. New for 2008 are the Slipstream squad, which despite being a top level team have elected to race as a Pro-Continental team, seemingly a second string outfit. Why?

The UCI, has for many years followed a strategy of developing a ProTour based to some degree on the hugely financial tennis pro tour model. Cycle teams would seek membership to the ProTour by paying extra to join and be prepared to race all designated ProTour races. A sort of premier league of franchised teams.

This strategy began to unravel at the beginning of 2007 when the UCI accepted the Unibet team into the ProTour ranks, taking the tally of teams to 23. From the off, the organisers of the Tour de France (ASO), Giro d'Italia (RCS) and Vuelta (Unipublic) protested, they argued that it was the right of the race organisers to decide who raced in their events and not the UCI, and thus a battle of 'ownership' soon raged.

Unibet were subsequently denied entry to ASO and RCS owned early season classics, the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and many races in France. (Though some organisers cited legal issues concerning the nature of the Unibet business)

The 2007 Tour de France finally bought matters to a head and all out war of words broke out when the ASO blamed the UCI for much of the controversy that surrounded the withdrawal of race leader Michael Rassmussen etc. The dye was set and for 2008 the ProTour no longer includes the big three tours, or classic races such as Milan San Remo and Paris Roubaix. Already the RCS has flexed their independence by not inviting two ProTour teams to compete in the 2008 Giro d'Italia when they omitting Astana and High Road, and in their stead the RCS chose teams of their own liking from the Pro Continental list. So why spend extra to be a ProTour team when the Grand Tours are using a different agenda?

The UCI remains the right to register race teams and in 2008 we have three main types of team, at the top of the UCI list are the ProTour squads followed by Professional Continental Teams and then Continental. (The later includes the UK's Rapha/Condor/ReCycling and Plowman Craven line ups) Some teams have elected to not become ProTour, this includes the new American Slipstream squad and Colstrop, (born from the ashes of the Unibet team). These two will hope that they will gain entry to ASO/RCS/Unipublic races regardless of UCI ranking.

The UCI has also decided that Pro Continental squads; Elk Haus-Simplon , Team Volksbank, Landbouwkrediet-Tönissteiner, Topsport Vlaanderen, Andalucía-Cajasur, Karpin Galicia, Agritubel, Barloworld , CSF Group Navigare Acqua Sapone, Tinkoff Credit Systems Skil-Shimano, BMC Racing Team, Slipstream Chipotle and Serramenti PVC are of sufficient quality to be 'Wild Cards' in all UCI sanctioned races. Time will tell which race organisers will take heed and whether they choose one of these over another not on any such list.