New race series to come in 2009?

At the presentation of the Henninger Turm one-day race in Frankfurt, scheduled for May 1, Gerolsteiner team manager Hans-Michael Holczer spoke to the attending German media about the rift between the Grand Tour organisers and the International Cycling Union (UCI), detailing his supposition that Tour de France organiser Amaury Sports Organisation (ASO) is seeking to create a new race series for the coming season.

The race organisers and UCI have been at odds over the ProTour for four years now, and with ASO as well as its Italian counterpart RCS Sport selecting team participation independently this year, the conflict has come to a point of no return. Holczer suspected that the Grand Tours, together with such 'monuments' as Milano-Sanremo, the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Giro di Lombardia, will be forming a new circuit parallel to the ProTour in 2009.

The key to an end of the conflict, according to Holczer, would be the integration of representatives of the race organisers, but also of the teams, into the independent license commission of the UCI. This would ensure a balance of power in the decision-making process on which teams are allowed to which races, a "mixed system" according to Holczer, who hoped that a solution satisfying all shareholders will soon be found.