UCI confirms WorldTour teams for 2021
The UCI announced the teams that have received WorldTour licenses for 2021 on Wednesday, confirming that SD Worx and Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, among other teams, will be racing at the highest level next season.
SD Worx (the team currently known as Boels-Dolmans) will join the Women’s WorldTour ranks following the awarding of a WorldTour license through 2023. The Dutch squad’s arrival brings the count of Women’s WorldTour teams to nine. SD Worx joins Alé-BTC Ljubljana, Canyon-SRAM Racing, FDJ Nouvelle-Aquitaine Futuroscope, Liv Racing, Trek-Segafredo, Movistar Team Women, the GreenEdge squad currently know as Mitchelton-Scott, and Team DSM (the next iteration of Sunweb) in the highest division.
On the men’s side, the Intermarché team – next year’s iteration of the Circus-Wanty Gobert team – will move up to the WorldTour level following the squad’s acquisition of CCC’s WorldTour license and subsequent approval by the UCI.
The rest of the division will be composed of the same teams as in 2020, albeit with some squads taking on different names next year. In addition to Intermarché, the 2021 men’s WorldTour ranks will feature AG2R-Citroën Team, Astana-Premier Tech, Bahrain Victorious, Bora-Hansgrohe, Cofidis, Deceuninck-Quick-Step, EF Education-Nippo, the GreenEdge team whose 2021 name has not yet been announced, Groupama-FDJ, Ineos Grenadiers, Israel Start-Up Nation, Jumbo-Visma, Lotto-Soudal, Movstar Team, Team DSM, Team Qhubeka-Assos, Trek-Segafredo, and UAE-Team Emirates.
The UCI’s Wednesday announcement also granted ProTeam status (formerly Pro Continental) to 19 squads, and confirmed that Alpecin-Fenix will receive automatic invites to all WorldTour events in 2021. Mathieu van der Poel’s team earned those invites thanks to its position at the top of the ProTeam rankings at the end of this season.
Arkéa-Samsic, the second-highest ranked squad in the second division, will receive automatic invites to all WorldTour one-day events next year.
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