Race organiser ASO has announced the 25 teams invited to both Ardennes classics, la Flèche Wallonne and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. In addition to the eighteen ProTour teams, seven wild cards have been awarded to Professional Continental teams.
French teams Cofidis and Bbox-Bouyges Telecom, both members of the ProTour until this year, have unsurprisingly been invited; as has the Cervélo TestTeam, which is a ProTour team in all but name.
With the races in Belgium, Landbouwkrediet and Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator, the two Belgian Pro Continental teams have been invited. The last two places have been awarded to Androni Giocattoli and Acqua & Sapone, reflecting the Italian flavour of the city of Liege with its immigrant population.
Missing out again, after their failure to secure a Giro d’Italia invitation, are the two Dutch Pro Continental teams Skil-Shimano and Vacansoleil. Both teams have been trying to impress ASO in its other races – the Tours of Qatar and Oman, and Paris-Nice – in the hope of securing an invitation to the Tour de France in July. With no invitations to the Ardennes, both teams will have to look for other ways to get the job done.
Teams for the 2010 Ardennes classics:
Acqua & Sapone
AG2R-La Mondiale
Androni Giocattoli-Serramenti PVC Diquigiovanni
Astana
Bbox Bouygues Telecom
BMC Racing Team
Caisse d’Epargne
Cervelo Test Team
Cofidis, le Crédit en ligne
Euskaltel-Euskadi
Française des Jeux
Garmin-Transitions
Katusha Team
Lampre-Farnese Vini
Landbouwkrediet
Liquigas-Doimo
Omega Pharma-Lotto
Quick Step
Rabobank
Team HTC-Columbia
Team Milram
Team RadioShack
Team Saxo Bank
Team Sky
Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator