UCI has a proposal to reform the pro cycling. Radically. Precisely speaking, the racing calender will be much different, less world tour races as well as shorter ones, according to a leaked document on Cicloweb.it. Also, the teams will be smaller and there'll be less world tour teams as well.
UCI will carry out the changes gradually between 2015 and 2020. The plan still have to be approved sometime in 2014, but this will be normally done. Although the whole program are expected to be completed by 2020, some radical changes will be implemented as soon as 2015.
Notable changes include downgrade of several existing world tour races within a few years, namely Vuelta al Pais Vasco, Tour de Romandie, Tour de Pologne, Eneco Tour, GP Plouay and GP E3. Those races will form a "second division" together with several other existing continental races like Bayern Rundfahrt, Tour of Oman and Paris-Tours. Other continental races remain there, although there must be some change in those circuits, with new races being hosted and existing races being ceased due to financal problems every year.
Those world tour races not get relegated will be called "first division", natually. But those races will be changed, too. both Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico will be cut to 6 days, as well as every other stage races besides grand tours. Also, no first division race will overlap with another in the new proposal.
The three grand tours will still remain as they are now, to be three weeks long, and to be approximately in May, July and August-September respectively. Totally the first division will contain around 120 race days, with the grand tours accounting for over half of them.
Not only races will be changed, the teams will, too. Currently we have a 30 rider cap for each world tour team, and this will be cut to 22 in the new UCI proposal. Considering the world tour calender will be shorter and without the overlapping races, this is a natural change that will be carried out by UCI.
The world tour teams, now called first division teams, will be obliged to contend the first division races like now. There will be only 16 first division teams though, with the current figure being 18. They can choose to attend the second division races and continental races as they wish, similar to what they're doing now.
There will be 8 second division teams, and they will only be required to attend the second division races, which have only 50 race days in total. They can still apply for wildcards of the first division races, which is similar to today's race scheme. Continental Professional and Continental teams can apply for wildcards of first and second division races as well.
This is only the proposed and provisional description of the new UCI calender and teams though, although it give us a pretty good idea about the whole reform.
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