Unibet.com, the ProTour team that disintegrated last year after being barred from most events, is back, with a new name and new sponsor.
The UCI has granted a one-year "wild card" license to the Swedish UCI professional continental team Cycle Collstrop, sponsored by a timber company.
Last year the team was granted a ProTour license while sponsored by Unibet.com, a Swedish gambling Web site.
The team soon became the focal point of the power struggle between the sport’s governing body and the organizers of the three grand tours, the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.
In particular, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) made certain the team was excluded from a host of its events, including the Tour, Paris-Nice, Liége-Bastogne-Liége and Paris-Roubaix.
While ASO and the other two members of the “big three” organizers said the exclusion was based on Unibet’s involvement in Internet-based gambling, the dispute most likely centered on the UCI/ASO battle over the structure of the ProTour and television rights.
In August the company announced it would pull out of the sport.
The wild card status gives the team the right to be invited to races on the UCI ProTour calendar. Teams with the label are required to participate in the UCI's biological passport program.
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
