2010_UCI_ProTour
2010 UCI ProTour
6th season of the cycling tournament
The 2010 UCI ProTour is the sixth series of the UCI ProTour: a series of 16 races in which the ProTour teams, considered the elite teams of the sport, participate alongside a number of invited "wildcard" teams. As in 2009, there is no competitive element to the ProTour of itself, but all its events contribute towards the 2010 UCI World Ranking. The first race was the 2010 Tour Down Under on 19–24 January, and the series will end with two new events, bringing the tour to North America for the first time, the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal on 10 September and 12 September respectively.
Two newly formed teams, the American Team RadioShack and British based Team Sky, joined the ProTour, while the licenses of Bbox Bouygues Telecom and Cofidis were not renewed. The Lampre–Farnese Vini team, although it has a ProTour Licence from the UCI valid until 2013, had its annual registration refused, and missed the first event of the tour while the matter remained unresolved. It subsequently received a temporary licence until 31 March, at which stage the full licence was restored. A number of teams have had name changes: Fuji–Servetto became Footon–Servetto–Fuji, a second name sponsor saw Garmin–Slipstream rename as Garmin–Transitions, and the name of the company, rather than one of its products, is featured in the change from Silence–Lotto to Omega Pharma–Lotto. Immediately before the Tour de France in July, two more teams altered their names: Française des Jeux simplified their name to FDJ, while Lampre–Farnese Vini became Lampre–Farnese.
