UCI confirms 22 teams that have secured Professional Continental status for 2012

World cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has confirmed the identity of the 22 teams that will race in the 2012 season under Professional Continental licences, the second tier of the sport.

Some 15 teams had been previously been confirmed in early November as having successfully applied for Professional Continental status, and they are joined by two that failed in their bids for top-flight ProTeam status, Project 1T4i (formerly Skil-Shimano) and Europcar.

Five teams – Andalucia, Champion System, Farnese Vini and Rusvelo – were confirmed today as having had their registrations approved at meetings of the UCI License Commission in the second half of November.

Champion System, whose 2011 roster included four-time Tour de France stage winner Jaan Kirsipuu from Estonia, steps up from the Asia Tour, where it raced under a Continental licence this year.

Missing, of course, is Geox-TMC which failed to achieve ProTeam status for the 2011 season and with it a place in the Tour de France, which finally folded last week after it proved unable to secure a replacement sponsor.

The full list of UCI Professional Continental teams for 2012, in alphabetical order, is as follows (nb the country of registration is often adopted for financial purposes so may not correspond to the country where the team is actually based).

Team                              Country

Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda’s       BEL
Acqua & Sapone                      ITA
Andalucia                           ESP
Androni Giocattoli                  ITA
Bretagne -Schuller                  FRA
Caja Rural                          ESP
Champion System Pro Cycling Team    CHN
Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne         FRA
Colnago-CSF Inox                    IRL
Colombia-Coldeportes                COL
Farnese Vini                        GBR
Landbouwkrediet                     BEL
Project 1T4i                        NED
Rusvelo                             RUS
Saur-Sojasun                        FRA
Spidertech Powered By C10           CAN
Team Europcar                       FRA
Team NetApp                         GER
Team Type 1-Sanofi                  USA
Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator        BEL
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team   USA
Utensilnord Named                   IRL