April 23, 2010 (Brussels) – The UCI ProTour Council (UPTC) held its first meeting of the year today in Brussels. Roger Legeay (FRA), Ramon Mendiburu (ESP), Stephen Roche (IRL) and Erik Zabel (GER), all new members, took part in a UPTC meeting for the first time. Also attending were UCI President Pat McQuaid, UCI Road Commission President Joop Atsma and riders’ representative Paulo Couto (POR).

In the first part of the meeting, Philippe Chevallier, the Director of the UCI Road Department, described progress in the globalisation of cycling, one of the UCI’s strategic priorities.

The global growth of the cycling movement is an extremely pleasing trend, as shown by the geographical distribution of first division teams and the growth in the number of second and third division teams over the 2000-2010 period. Ten years ago, the first division teams came from eight countries on two continents, whereas this season the teams come from 11 countries on three continents. The number of second and third division teams has more than doubled: 147 teams from 43 countries on 5 continents today, compared with 72 teams from 19 countries on 2 continents in 2000.

The UCI Doctor, Mario Zorzoli, then presented a very positive assessment of the first two years of the biological passport. He emphasised the very encouraging changes of behaviour in the great majority of riders covered by the programme. The programme puts the UCI in the vanguard of the fight against doping.

The biological passport is also a very useful tool in terms of the information it provides to allow increasingly effective targeting, as well as for its dissuasive effects.

Thanks to the support of all the parties involved and their contributions to the programme’s funding (approximately 9 million Swiss francs in 2009), the UCI will continue its activities in this field, seeking an ever-closer cooperation with the various national anti-doping organisations.

The UPTC then approved the implementation of a UCI labelling system for bicycle frames in 2011 and also approved the principle of solidarity between UCI ProTeams and National Federations. The federations will receive a certain number of bikes at the end of each season under this solidarity scheme.

The last part of the meeting was dedicated to a discussion of the registration procedures for UCI ProTeams and UCI Professional Continental teams. The UPTC decided to make some amendments to these procedures in order to optimise them for the 2011 season.

The next meeting of the UPTC will be held in Birmingham (GBR) on 16 June.