Tour Down Under confirmed as ProTour contender

By Shane Stokes

UCI President Pat McQuaid spoke to Cyclingnews about the Tour Down Under, and appeared to confirm that Australia's flagship event is moving closer to a possible upgrade to the ProTour calendar. He stated that the UCI are considering this possibility as part of their development of the series.

"The Premier of South Australia, Mike Rann, is very, very keen that the Tour Down Under can be considered a ProTour event. He is prepared to make whatever investment is necessary to ensure that it goes in that direction.

"The ProTour council is strongly considering the globalisation of the ProTour at the moment, and expanding it to some other markets. We are looking at it [the Tour Down Under] positively, but you have to take a lot of things into consideration in order to bring such an event onto the calendar. It is not a decision that is going to be taken overnight, but it is something that we are looking at positively in the near future rather than the long-term future," he stated.