Wanty-Groupe Gobert finish top of UCI Europe Tour rankings
17 October 2018 06:03
Belgian Pro Continental team Wanty-Groupe Gobert have finished first in the UCI Europe Tour for the third year in a row. The season-long competition for the tier of teams below the top-tier UCI WorldTour was won convincingly by the Belgian outfit from runner-up Cofidis and Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec in third place. With no promotion or relegation system between 'leagues' in cycling, the team will remain at Pro Continental level in 2019.ADVERTISEMENT However, the recently announced UCI reforms have revealed that the second-tier continental competitions will be replaced in 2020 by a new, international UCI ProSeries, disputed between ProTeams – the new name for Pro Continental squads. The top two finishers in that competition will automatically qualify for the following year's Grand Tours – the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España. That means that the Grand Tour organisers will have a reduced number of so-called 'wildcard' invitations to hand out, which often go to teams of the same nationality as the Grand Tour, and so the new system will reward ability that much more.
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