The UCI has revealed the checklist {of professional} groups who’ve requested to register for the 2024 season, with the identical 18 2023 males’s WorldTour groups making use of for licences for 2024, 16 girls’s groups making use of for the 15 out there locations as Girls’s WorldTour groups, and 17 males’s groups making use of for Professional Crew standing.
The UCI announcement confirms that Jumbo-Visma and Soudal-QuickStep intend to proceed as separate entities after negotiations to type a mega group led to early October.
Jumbo-Visma are listed as Blanco Professional Biking Crew within the UCI checklist of groups. That’s the title of the group’s administration firm, with Visma and Lease a Bike anticipated to be named as title sponsors.
All the opposite groups look set to proceed their 2023 WorldTour standing, with Arkea including B&B Lodges as a second sponsor, whereas Intermarché-Wanty have misplaced Circus as a title sponsor.
Plenty of group modifications are anticipated for the Girls’s WorldTour in 2024. EF Training-TIBCO SVB are folding and Jayco AlUla and Liv-TeqFind have merged into one group beneath the previous’s title. That has created slots for brand spanking new groups.
AG Insurance coverage-Soudal Fast-Step, Ceratizit-WNT Professional Biking and Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi are the three groups attempting to maneuver up from the Continental stage.
Rankings-wise, Ceratizit-WNT carried out better of the three in 2023, ending eleventh general within the group rating, with AG Insurance coverage in thirteenth and the Basque group down in twenty fifth.
Three of this 12 months’s groups had been listed on the press launch with totally different names with Jumbo-Visma girls now beneath Blanco Professional Biking Girls, Israel-Premier Tech Roland simply as Roland and Uno-X as Uno-X Mobility.
Human Powered Well being and Bolton Equities Black Spoke absent from 2024 males’s ProTeam checklist
There have been 18 males’s ProTeams in 2023 however the US-registered Human Powered Well being group and New Zealand’s Bolton Equities Black Spoke group are absent from the 2024 checklist.
Each groups have struggled to seek out new sponsors. TDT-Unibet have been added to the checklist as they work to step up from Continental to ProTeam stage.
Different groups should apply for ProTeam standing for 2024 earlier than the ultimate deadline however face a race towards time and additional prices. Continental groups are registered with nationwide federations and comply with a simplified course of.
The UCI checklist of groups is necessary for riders beneath contract with the groups not listed. Beneath the UCI’s guidelines, they will now terminate their contracts prematurely and signal with different groups. We are able to anticipate various WorldTour and ProTeams to conclude offers with riders and announce some last-minute signings as they full their rosters.
The groups’ licence functions embrace sponsorship info, budgets, financial institution ensures, rider contracts and employees construction. They are going to all now be studied intimately by the UCI Licence Fee and exterior auditor PwC to verify they respect the sporting, administrative, moral, monetary and organisational standards and the UCI rules.
The UCI mentioned it should concern a press launch on 12 December, when the selections of the Licence Fee have been communicated to the UCI and the groups.
Because of the factors scored in 2023, Lotto-Dstny and Israel-PremierTech will obtain computerized invites to all of the WorldTour races, together with the Tour de France, with Uno-X invited to the one-day WorldTour races.
The opposite ProTeams, together with TotalEnergies, Tudor Professional Biking and Q36.5 should pitch to race organisers for the ultimate two or three Grand Tour wild card locations and different race invites.