2009 in road cycling

In 2009 a number of prominent riders returned to professional cycling. Ivan Basso, Floyd Landis and Michele Scarponi had finished a suspension. Bjorn Leukemans was without a team for over a year due to doping-related allegations, which were proven to be ungrounded. Most notably, seven time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong returned after a three-and-half year break, starting his season as a Astana-rider in the Tour Down Under.

The teams Gerolsteiner and Saunier Duval–Scott, both who were connected to some major doping cases in 2008, saw their title sponsors drop out. The Spanish squad found a new sponsor in Fuji Bikes and was granted another ProTour license as Fuji–Servetto. However, race organizer ASO did not invite the team for their races, and they did not participate in the Tour de France. New teams in the ProTour are Garmin–Slipstream from the United States and Team Katusha (built from the former Tinkoff Credit Systems) from Russia. One notable new ProContinental team, started from scratch, is the Cervélo TestTeam, which managed to sign 2008 Tour de France-winner Carlos Sastre and Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd. Like another new ProContinental team, Vacansoleil from the Netherlands, Katusha and Cervélo immediately proved successful in the early months of the season.

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