September 23, 2009 (Mendrisio, Switzerland) – The UCI ProTour Council (CUPT) met today in Mendrisio (SUI), in parallel with the UCI Road World Championships. As regards the Cycling Grand Prix in Québec and Montreal, Canada, which have both recently received a UCI ProTour licence, the CUPT decided that these events would take place on 10 and 12 September, respectively. Each year, the event in Québec will precede the Montreal race.

Some indications with regard to the course were disclosed following a visit by UCI’s technical delegate: the Montreal Cycling Grand Prix will be contested over 200 km, with an accumulated gradient of 2,800 m, whereas the Québec course will cover 189 km and a total accumulated gradient of 3,000 m.

The Council approved the dates of the events in the UCI ProTour class for 2010 (with a change of date for Gent-Wevelgem, which will take place on 28 March, in the context of the Flemish Week project, supported by the Belgium Cycling Federation), subject to the awarding of UCI ProTour licences to those teams who have not yet obtained them. These dates will be published at the end of the Management Committee meeting which will take place over the next two days, at the same time as those of the other competitions in the UCI World Calendar.

Finally, the members of CUPT demonstrated their willingness to find a solution to a new problem for 2011: due to a higher number of teams requesting a UCI ProTour licence than expected, the UCI ProTour events which also accept other types of outfit are facing a problem of unmanageable participation rates. The rules on participation for 2011 should, therefore, be modified in order to solve this.