UCI announce 18 ProTeams for 2011

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The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced today the 18 teams registered as ProTeams for 2011, the sport's highest division formerly know as ProTour.

Ten teams which already had valid licences for 2010 have been approved by the UCI Licence Commission. AG2R (France), Katusha (Russia), Lampre-ISD (Italy), Quick Step (Belgium), Saxo Bank-SunGard (Denmark) and Team RadioShack (USA) today joined four teams already previously registered on November 2, 2010: Garmin-Cervélo (USA), Omega Pharma-Lotto (Belgium), Rabobank (Netherlands) and Sky ProCycling (Great Britain).

Eight additional teams were named either requesting a renewal of a licence or applying for a new licence. The BMC Racing Team (USA), HTC-Highroad (USA), Liguigas-Cannondale (Italy) and the Luxembourg Pro Cycling Project (Luxembourg) were all granted a four-year licence. Movistar (Spain), Astana (Kazakhstan) and Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team (Netherlands) were each issued a three-year licence and Euskaltel-Euskadi (Spain) received a two-year licence.

The Licence Commission refused the licence requests of Spain's Geox-TMC, the team of Denis Menchov and Carlos Sastre, and France's Cofidis Le Crédit en ligne. As a result both teams will automatically be registered as UCI Professional Continental teams for 2011.

The complete list of UCI Professional Continental teams will be announced on December 10, 2010.