Vicente Belda criticises the ProTour

By Hernan Alvarez Macias in Madrid

Comunidad Valenciana team director Vicente Belda wanted to talk at the end of the Vuelta a España. His team won the team classification by 54 minutes and 2 seconds over second placed Illes Balears. His team did a great job with Eladio Jimenez, Ruben Plaza, brothers Garcia Quesada and Javier Pascual Rodriguez winning stages and fighting for almost all the stages. But he wasn't happy about the ProTour. Comunidad Valenciana is a continental team inside the UCI's new system, and doesn't have place in the top 20 ProTour teams. Thus, its access to the grand tours is far more limited than it was in the past.

The Spanish riders, teams and cycling organizations have shown their dislike for the UCI's new reform, which was introduced at the beginning of this year. Belda went straight to the point in the press room: "The ProTour is badly set up and they didn't look for solutions. We had the greatest gap in winning the team classification in the history of the Vuelta. Today, fifty riders were racing the Tour of Poland. a UCI ProTour competition. Is it good the ProTour, I ask?"

Belda congratulated T-Mobile and Gerolsteiner, which finished with the most riders, but he stated that they didn't improve and that they finished slowly. He also made a petition "gentlemen in charge of the ProTour, fix it."