British team will miss Dwars door Vlaanderen, Turkey, Frankfurt but ride Velon three-day race
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The Team Sky bus before the stage(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Geraint Thomas sits at the head of the Team Sky train(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Team Sky out in the snow(Image credit: Twitter / Radsport)
Team Sky at 2016 Japan Cup team presentation(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Team Sky published its calendar of races for the 2017 season, listing a massive schedule of 61 events around the world, beginning with the already completed Tour Down Under and ending with the new WorldTour event, the Tour of Guangxi.
The UCI added 10 new events to the WorldTour calendar, for a total of 38, although the Tour of Qatar was subsequently canceled. Team Sky intends to compete in all but three of them. They list the Tour of California, Abu Dhabi Tour, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, Prudential RideLondon, and Strade Bianche on their calendar, but not the Dwars door Vlaanderen, Presidential Tour of Turkey or Rund um den Finanzplatz Eschborn-Frankfurt.
The Tour of Turkey has struggled to attract WorldTour teams to its event, not only because of the tense political situation in the country but also because of its inconvenient placement on the calendar, where it overlaps with the Ardennes Classics.
Listed on the schedule for Team Sky is "Velon NL" from June 2-4, 2017, a new event promoted by Velon that is set to take place in the Limburg region of the Netherlands. The race is reportedly going to introduce new events including a teams pursuit – a team time trial with all squads on the course at the same time – a points race on a course that includes the Cauberg climb, and a race for the sprinters.
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