2008 UCI Pro Tour

2008 UCI Pro Tour

The 2008 UCI ProTour is the fourth year of the UCI ProTour system. Following protracted disagreement between the organisers of the Grand Tours (ASO, RCS and Unipublic) and the UCI, all races organized by ASO, RCS and Unipublic were withdrawn from the ProTour calendar. This removed all three Grand Tours (Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España), four of the five monuments (Milan – San Remo, Paris–Roubaix, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and Giro di Lombardia) and four further races (Paris–Nice, Tirreno–Adriatico, La Flèche Wallonne and Paris–Tours). As such, the quality of the races of the ProTour was diminished. The Australian race, the Tour Down Under was added to the calendar, making it the first race outside of Europe on the ProTour (although races had previously been held outside of Europe as part of the UCI Road World Cup).

The highly successful Discovery Channel ceased operations at the end of the 2007 season. Johan Bruyneel signed on to become the directeur sportif and revamp the embattled Astana; joining him are 2007 Tour de France champion Alberto Contador and 2007 Tour of California champion Levi Leipheimer. Other major signings included American George Hincapie moving to Team High Road and Daniele Bennati from Lampre to Liquigas, while Giro d'Italia winner Danilo Di Luca left Liguigas for the UCI Professional Continental team LPR Brakes-Ballan.