Final decision due on December 10th
Following reports earlier today that the Geox-TMC team of Carlos Sastre and Denis Menchov had been passed over by the UCI for a ProTeam (formerly ProTour) licence for 2011, the UCI have clarified that this is not the case.
Tuttobici reported earlier that UCI President Pat McQuaid had called Maurizio D’Angelo, Geox-TMC team president, yesterday and told him that the team was not being given the green light.
However the UCI has contradicted this, with UCI spokesman Enrico Carpani saying that this is not true.
“I can officially deny that Pat McQuaid has spoken with the team,” he told VeloNation this evening. “The decision has not been taken yet: the Licences Commission will made it at the latest on December 10th.”
The UCI is only considering the top 20 in a list it has drawn up of top-ranked teams for 2011. The precise mechanism for the ranking has not been revealed. Eighteen of those teams will be given ProTeam licences, with the others needing to rely on wildcard invites to get into WorldTour races, including the Tour de France.
Geox-TMC is an evolution of the current Footon-Servetto-Fuji team, and includes riders such as Sastre and Menchov. Sastre won the 2008 Tour while Menchov took third this July.