Tour of Utah Announces 16 Teams to Compete
5/31/11 - The 2011 edition of the Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah professional cycling stage race will now feature a total of five UCI ProTeams, and a total field of 16 teams from around the globe. Four international squads, including Liquigas-Cannondale and Garmin-Cervélo, and five domestic teams were added this week by race organizers. Taking place August 9-14 using six different Host Venues across northern Utah, “America’s Toughest Stage RaceTM” will be the first UCI 2.1-rated stage race for ProTeams in the U.S. following the Tour de France.
In the final field for Tour of Utah, six of the teams (all the UCI ProTeams and Geox-TMC) just completed the Giro d’Italia, one of the three Grand Tours of Europe. Eleven of the confirmed teams competed at the Amgen Tour of California in May. And, the five UCI ProTeams will be competing in July at the Tour de France. The final field for Tour of Utah includes 11 teams registered in the United States, and other teams represent Canada, Italy, Great Britain, New Zealand and Spain.
UCI ProTeams Confirmed:(world rankings as of May 30, 2011)
HTC-Highroad (USA), No. 1 on World Tour
Team RadioShack (USA), No. 4 on World Tour
BMC Racing Team (USA), No. 7 on World Tour
*Team Garmin-Cervélo (USA), No. 9 on World Tour
*Liquigas-Cannondale (ITA), No. 13 on World Tour
UCI Professional Continental Teams Confirmed:(rankings as of May 23, 2011)
*Geox-TMC (ESP), No. 11 on UCI Europe Tour
Team Type 1 – sanofi-aventis (USA), No. 16 on UCI Europe Tour
Team SpiderTech powered by C10 (CAN), No. 15 on UCI America Tour
UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling (USA), No. 3 NRC and 13 on UCI America Tour
UCI Continental Team, America Tour Confirmed:
*Bissell Pro Cycling (USA), No. 1 NRC team
*Endura Racing (GBR), No. 22 on UCI America Tour
*Jamis/Sutter Home Pro Cycling (USA), No. 9 NRC team
*Kelly Benefit Strategies – OptumHealth (USA), No. 14 NRC team
*PureBlack Racing (NZL), No. 5 NRC team and No. 4 on UCI Oceania tour
*RealCyclist.com Pro Cycling (USA), No. 2 NRC team
Trek-LIVESTRONG U23 (USA), No. 7 NRC team
*denotes recent addition to Tour of Utah
Each domestic and international professional cycling team will compete with a maximum of eight riders per team. The athletes will compete for six days across the mountains, buttes and plateaus of Utah, vying for UCI points, award jerseys and $116,000 in prize money. Professional teams competing in the Tour of Utah will announce their rosters later in the summer. The Tour of Utah was elevated by the international governing body of the sport of cycling (UCI) to be one of just three 2.1-rated, or higher, world-class stage races in the U.S. The Tour of Utah is the second largest of these three races.
