Tour organisers pull races from UCI’s 2017 calendar (Reuters)

By Julien Pretot PARIS (Reuters) – Tour de France organisers ASO (Amaury Sport Organisation) are withdrawing their races from the International Cycling Union calendar in 2017 because of a disagreement over the reform of the calendar and the selection of teams, they said on Friday. The ASO said the reform of the UCI’s World Tour means that the 2017 season would be a closed circuit whereas it wants a system based on ‘sporting criteria’, meaning no team can be guaranteed a spot on the Tour de France and other top events. The reform of the calendar, approved by the UCI, said teams would be handed three-year World Tour licences — rather than the one-year licences until 2016.