Press release of the three Major Tours

All their attempts to come together with the International Cycling Union have been refused by the latter to return to an open sporting model and they do not want to see their events be part of a closed system. “UCI PRO TOUR”, RCS SPORT, A.S.O. and Uniopublic SAU, the organisers of the three Major Tours Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España) must define the 2007 conditions for participation for their main events. These conditions head towards opening up the events desired by the three national federations as well numerous other organisers.

1. The eleven concerned events are: Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, la Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a España, Paris-Tours and Giro di Lombardia.

2. From 2008, 16 cycling teams will qualify based on criteria yet to be determined and principally the performances over the preceding two years: 2006 and 2007 results for qualifying to take part in the 2008 and 2009 races, and so on.

3. To participate in their 2007 events during this transition year the organisers of the three Major Tours, in order to pose no delays, consider the following 18 teams qualified to compete in their events: AG2R Prévoyance, Bouygues Telecom, Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears, Cofidis, Crédit Agricole, Discovery Channel, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Française des Jeux, Gerolsteiner, Lampre-Fondital, Liquigas, Predictor-Lotto, Quickstep-Innergetic, Rabobank, Saunier Duval-Prodir, T Mobile Team, Team CSC and Team Milram.

4. The teams qualified for these different events are under no obligation to take part: their participation will be optional and each one will indicate to the organiser of each event, no later than December 31^st of the preceding year if they wish to participate or not.

5. The organiser of each event reserves the right to refuse entry to all riders or any member of a team if their presence puts the event in a bad light.

6. The organisers of each event can extend invitation entries (wild cards). Each of the three Major Tours will attribute the total number of teams that will take part, no earlier than three months before the start of the event and the event will have no more than 20 teams from 2008 with 22 during the 2007 transition season.

McQuaid not impressed

UCI president Pat McQuaid told sportwereld.be he was not informed about the plans of the three major tours. But McQuaid did not seem to be impressed. McQuaid told sportwereld.be: "The can's start anything," McQuaid said. "We are the international cycling federation and define the rules. The organizers can't go their own way just like that."

Cunego on Zoncolan

Damiano Cunego began to visit Giro d’Italia 2007’s routes and his first visit has been on the Zoncolan climb.
With his teammate Morris Possoni and assisted by sport director Giuseppe Martinelli and mechanic Enrico Pengo, Cunego covered the climb until 4 kilometers from the top: here he had to stop because of the ice that covered the last part of the tough climb.

Cunego said: “It’s very tough." Cunego continued by saying: "I knew that it was very hard, but I didn’t know that it was so tough. Form the begin, the climb doesn’t give you the chance to recover energies, you’re always on tracks with 20% of grade and you have always to give the top effort. I think that Zoncolan will be a spectacular point but also a very important moment of Giro. I’m satisfied about this visit, because I think that it is very useful to know this very tough climb."