The organizers of the Tour de France have completed selection of the teams for the next edition of the event, which will start from the Province of Liege on Saturday, June 30th, and finish in Paris Champs-Elysées on , July 22nd.
Not unexpectedly, there were no Italian teams selected for the wildcards. The only Italian teams will be Lampre–ISD and Liquigas-Cannondale.
In accordance with International Cycling Union rules, the following eighteen “ProTeams” have been systematically selected:
AG2R La Mondiale (Fra)
Astana Pro Team (Kaz)
BMC Racing Team (USA)
Euskaltel – Euskadi (Esp)
FDJ – Big Mat (Fra)
Garmin – Barracuda (USA)
Greenedge Cycling Team (Aus)
Katusha Team (Rus)
Lampre – ISD (Ita)
Liquigas – Cannondale (Ita)
Lotto Belisol Team (Bel)
Movistar Team (Esp)
Omega Pharma – Quickstep (Bel)
Rabobank Cycling Team (Hol)
Radioshack – Nissan (Lux)
Sky Procycling (Gbr)
Team Saxo Bank (Dan)
Vacansoleil – DCM Pro Cycling Team (Hol)
In addition to these eighteen teams, the organizers have issued four invitations, meaning twenty-two teams will be present at the start of the 99th edition of the Tour de France. They are:
Argos – Shimano (Hol)
Cofidis, le crédit en ligne (Fra)
Saur – Sojasun (Fra)
Team Europcar (Fra)
The 99th Tour de France will be made up of 1 prologue and 20 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,479 kilometres.
These stages have the following profiles:
9 flat stages
4 medium mountain stages - one with a summit finish
5 mountain stages - two with a summit finish
2 individual time-trial stages
1 prologue
2 rest days
Follow on Twitter: ITALIANCYCJOURN
Stories for the Italian Cycling Journal about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com. There are more than 2,300 stories in this blog. The search feature to the right works best for finding subjects in the blog. There is also a translate button at the bottom so you can translate each page.
Posts
Italian cycling is paying the price for the seemingly endless doping scandals. While there is still no better place to be a cyclist or cycling fan, a whole lot of folks we speak with here in Italy no longer care much about pro cycling, "they're all doped" is what we hear over and over, despite the recent efforts to clean things up. While there seem to be ever more riders out enjoying their cycling, the pro sport is in grave danger of losing sponsorship here. Liquigas is rumored to be done at the end of 2012..who will pick up the Amadio program of Nibali, etc?
ReplyDelete