Second Day of the UCI Management Committee Meeting

The Management Committee of the International Cycling Union (UCI) met on 17 and 18 June in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

On the second day of the meeting, the Management Committee awarded the 2011 UCI Cyclo-Cross Masters World Championships to the town of Mol in Belgium. The 2011 UCI Mountain Bike World Cup calendar was also approved.

The members of the Management Committee discussed issues concerning equipment used in road competitions and decided that it was necessary to bolster measures that have already been put in place (in particular the visual inspection of bicycles, a procedure that was recently reinforced). As a result, a scanner will be used from the time of the Tour de France. This instrument, recently tested with a successful outcome, will allow an official to detect any illegal devices that may be concealed, for example, in the bicycle frame.

Furthermore, a close collaboration with Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), a Swiss technical institute of international renown, is being studied. The objective of this cooperation would be to examine ways to control, in an optimal manner, the influence of technology over the equipment used in cycling, such that this could offer a beneficial contribution to the sport and avoid any future deviations.

Finally, from now on race service will be subject to stricter regulation in order to ensure that only equipment that has been checked at the start or finish can be used during competitions.

The Management Committee also defined the regulations for participation in the 2011 UCI World Calendar events.

The UCI ProTeams – of which there will be a maximum of 18 – will be obliged to participate in UCI ProTour races. The top 17 UCI Professional Continental Teams of the 2010 UCI World Ranking will also have the right to participate.

As for the Monument events, these shall invite the 17 best teams of the 2010 UCI World Ranking.

This formula represents a compromise with the organisers of Monument events. The UCI sincerely regrets that these organisers ultimately rejected the principle of the automatic participation of UCI ProTeams in their events.

However, negotiations with the organisers led to an agreement, reached in particular as a result of an increased consideration of teams’ sporting values, one of the organisers’ main requests. The UCI has nevertheless decided to retain the principle it has adopted for its system of awarding UCI ProTour licences.

In terms of scheduling, the UCI announces that the list of Professional Continental Teams that have been registered will be published on 20 November each year. If this list leaves some team places yet to be announced, the names of the final teams registered will be communicated on 10 December. The definitive list of teams registered in the second division will be published on this date.

For more information contact: Julien Stauffer at admin@uci.ch

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