Boonen justifies exclusions from Milano-Sanremo

Tom Boonen would find the potential exclusion of Milano-Sanremo hopefuls Alessandro Petacchi and Danilo Di Luca (both LPR Brakes) justified. Boonen said that teams who don't follow the UCI regulations, such as the blood passport programme or the whereabouts rules, should not be allowed to compete in the big races.

Only ProTour teams and those teams with wildcards can participate in Milano-Sanremo. "If LPR Brakes follows the rules then there is no problem at all," Boonen told Belgian paper Sportwereld. "The racers have to follow the whereabouts rules. I do that out of total conviction, but everybody needs to do the same. I already had to do that from the first year [the whereabouts system started]. Initially we were only 20, then 100 and now everybody."

LPR Brakes was excluded from Paris-Tours last year for not having signed up for the blood passport programme. It also had some trouble receiving the UCI Professional Continental status for 2009.

The list of contenders in Milano-Sanremo is getting smaller, in addition to the potential non-start of Petacchi and Di Luca. Former winners Oscar Freire and Fabian Cancellara are out due to injury and four-time winner Erik Zabel retired last year.