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[BdaGhisallo]

Team size and qualification was traditionally based upon the historical ranking of the major cycling nations. Nations like Italy, Belgium, Spain, France and the Netherlands were allowed twelve member teams and it would filter down from there. Such big teams would sometimes lead to stifled racing so the UCI decided to limit team size to a maximum of nine.

Then they decided to tamper with the nation qualification procedures, basing them upon ProTour and Continental Tour standings. It has flocked it all up. Now you have the current situation where a powerhouse nation like Iran can send six riders and a lowly backwater cycling nation like Luxembourg can usually only send two or three. And Norway sometimes gets only one spot! The smaller nations in Europe, perhaps despite having a good handful of top riders, like Norway, get penalized because they don't have the sheer number of riders to rack up points that all accumulate in the nation standings. I don't think there is any way the nations' points totals are pro rated to the number of pros they have in the peloton.

It sucks. I am all for mondialisation of the sport, but it has to be earned in this instance. Don't do it at the expense of the strong nations.

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[Louis]

Although it won't be as good as a "real" team I would think that there will be plenty of alliances of convenience between the smaller teams.

One of humanity's enduring problems - how to distribute a scarce resource. If you can figure out a perfect way to do this they'll retire the Nobel peace prize to your mantle.

Louis