The International Cycling Union (UCI) Management Committee has defined the regulations for participation in the 2011 UCI World Calendar events. At a meeting in Birmingham, England today, the UCI confirmed that participation in races on the UCI's World Calendar will be obligatory for the 18 UCI ProTour teams.
Following an earlier announcement expanding coverage for the biological passport from those that wanted wildcard status to all second division teams, the governing body has taken the decision that the top 17 Pro Continental teams in the 2010 UCI World Ranking will now be eligible for wildcard selection in UCI World Calendar events. Furthermore, the Monument events will still give race organizers latitude for discretion, but now the 17 best teams from the 2010 UCI World Ranking will benefit from automatic selection.
Changes reflect a compromise with organizers of the what the UCI refers to as "Monument" events, which are labeled as "Historic" on the World Calendar and amount to more races than the typical use of the word that referes to the five Monument one-day Classics. Those races include organizers that were not willing to give up their say in selecting wildcard teams for their event. Those races, combined with the ProTour events, make up the UCI World Ranking.
The statement read "The UCI sincerely regrets that these organisers ultimately rejected the principle of the automatic participation of UCI ProTeams in their events. However, negotiations with the organisers led to an agreement, reached in particular as a result of an increased consideration of teams’ sporting values, one of the organisers’ main requests. The UCI has nevertheless decided to retain the principle it has adopted for its system of awarding UCI ProTour licences."
On November 20th of each year the UCI will publish the list of Professional Continental Teams that have been registered. If there are any places unannounced at that time, the final decision will be communicated on December 10th. There were no provisions mentioned in the event that a top 17 team in the previous year's UCI World Ranking is discontinued.