The UCI has confirmed that 18 teams have secured places in the 2020 men's WorldTour, including Cofidis and the Israel Cycling Academy, but Mitchelton-Scott's application file is still being evaluated by the UCI's Licence Commission, with a final decision to be "issued as soon as possible".
"Approval of our WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour licences is still 'under review’ due to a slight delay in one of the documents required by the UCI," read a statement from Mitchelton-Scott.
"This paperwork has since been provided and all criteria is met. We expect confirmation in the next few days."
All of the other existing men's WorldTour teams were confirmed for 2020, with the addition of the French Cofidis team, who secured enough ranking points to step up from Professional Continental level.
Israel Cycling Academy bought out the Katusha-Alpecin team to take over the German team's slot. All the teams have been given three-year licences for the WorldTour but have to apply for WorldTour status for each new season.
20 teams applied for WorldTour status, with the Arkéa-Samsic team of Nairo Quintana missing out on the sport's top tier. The teams were scrutinised for financial, ethical, administrative and organisational criteria in recent weeks, as per UCI rules. Teams had to produce a bank guarantee in case of financial problems and register a full roster of riders.
The UCI has already announced that only 18 men's WorldTour places will available in 2023, meaning the 19 teams will have to fight for ranking points during the next three seasons to avoid relegation from professional cycling's premier division after the 2022 season. Any new sponsor or team wanting to enter professional cycling at WorldTour level would have to buy out an existing squad in order to race at the highest level in 2021 or 2022.
As part of a rebranding and the creation of the men's ProSeries level of races, Professional Continental teams will be known as ProTeams from 2020.
The UCI has also awarded licences to 18 Professional Continental teams (seven fewer than in 2019), including Total Direct Energie and Arkea-Samsic. Rally Cycling and Team Novo Nordisk are the only US ProTeams in 2020, with Axeon Hagens Berman dropping down to Continental level.
Mathieu van der Poel's team will be known simply as Corendon, with Circus becoming a title sponsor of the Belgian Wanty-Gobert team, to be known as Circus-Wanty Gobert. The Italian Neri Sottoli team becomes the Vino Zabu KTM team. The application file of the Bingoal-WB team from Belgium is still being evaluated by the UCI commission.
Total Direct Energie were best placed in the 2019 Professional Continental rankings and secured an automatic invitation to all UCI WorldTour events, including the three Grand Tours. They have already turned down a place at the Giro d'Italia but are expected to ride the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España.
Circus-Wanty Gobert were the second best ranked ProTeam, securing automatic invitations to the one-day UCI Classic Series races. However, a 19-team WorldTour and the places for Total Direct Energie and Circus-Wanty Gobert will limit the number of wildcard invitations that WorldTour race organisers can award in 2020, leaving the other ProTeams fighting for places in the sport's biggest races.
2020 UCI WorldTeams
- AG2R La Mondiale
- Astana Pro Team
- Bahrain McLaren
- Bora-Hansgrohe
- CCC Team
- Cofidis
- Deceuninck-QuickStep
- EF Education First
- Groupama-FDJ
- Israel Cycling Academy
- Lotto Soudal
- Movistar Team
- NTT Pro Cycling Team
- Team Ineos
- Team Jumbo-Visma
- Team Sunweb
- Trek-Segafredo
- UAE Team Emirates
- Pending: Mitchelton-Scott
2020 UCI ProTeams
- Androni Giocattoli-Sidermec
- Bardiani CSF Faizane'
- Caja Rural-Seguros RGA
- Circus-Wanty Gobert
- Fundacion-Orbea
- Gazprom-Rusvelo
- Rally Cycling
- Riwal Readynez Cycling Team
- Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise
- Team Arkea-Samsic
- Team Novo Nordisk
- Total Direct Energie
- Uno-X Norwegian Development Team
- B&B Hotels-Vital Concept
- Burgos-BH
- Corendon
- Nippo Delko Provence
- Vino Zabu’ KTM
- Pending: Bingoal-WB
