ASO names teams for Classics

The Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) announced the teams for the upcoming Spring Classics Paris-Roubaix, La Fléche Wallonne and Liège - Bastogne - Liège, and as expected the list does not include Astana. The team of the 2007 Tour de France winner Alberto Contador was refused entry to all of the ASO's events in February, and it was recently announced that this would indeed extend to the Tour de France.

All 17 of the other ProTour teams made the cut on the list of 25 teams. Professional Continental teams Slipstream, Skil-Shimano, Barloworld, Agritubel, Tinkoff Credit Systems, Topsport Vlaanderen, Landbouwkrediet - Tönissteiner and the Cycle Collstrop team, formerly known as Unibet.com round out the squads for the Classics.

Notably absent was LPR Brakes, the team of defending Liège-Bastogne-Liège champion Danilo Di Luca. The Italian is also a past winner of Flèche Wallonne, but recent doping investigations might have played a role in ruling him and his team out. Mitsubishi-Jartazi, the team of Frank Vandenbroucke and Allan Davis, was also not amongst the invitees.

Teams: AG2R La Mondiale, Agritubel, Barloworld, Bouygues Telecom, Caisse d'Epargne, Cofidis, Crédit Agricole, Cycle Collstrop, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Française des Jeux, Gerolsteiner, Team High Road, Lampre, Landbouwkrediet - Tönissteiner, Liquigas, Quick Step, Rabobank, Saunier Duval-Scott, Skil-Shimano, Slipstream-Chipotle, Silence-Lotto, Team CSC, Team Milram, Tinkoff Credit Systems, Topsport Vlaanderen.