Last night in Brussels concluded peace talks between Grand Tour organizers and the UCI ProTour, held at the insistence of the International Professional Cycling Teams (IPCT), an economic interest group of the ProTour teams. A ceasefire was called, and, although the details are still vague, cycling will continue with the running of the Paris-Nice, starting this Sunday.
"The present agreement has the aim of amicably settling the disagreement which is affecting professional cycling," read an IPCT release.
UCI President Pat McQuaid had threatened to punish any ProTour team taking part in the "Race to the Sun" after race organizers, ASO, established its own selection criteria and requested the French Cycling Federation (FFC) to take over race regulation.
"We are going to ride Paris-Nice," said IPCT Chairman Patrick Lefevere to Reuters following a meeting of seven hours. "We have a consensus for the moment that we can live with."
Rolf Aldag, Team Manager of ProTour team T-Mobile, was pleased with the news. He commented on the team's website, t-mobile-team.com, "We are happy that a solution has been found that will benefit cycling."
Cyclingnews' recent coverage of the ProTour-Grand Tours split
