2012 UCI World Tour
| Second edition of the UCI World Tour | |
| Details | |
|---|---|
| Dates | 17 January – 13 October |
| Location | Europe, Canada, Australia and China |
| Rounds | 29 |
| Champions | |
| Individual champion | Joaquim Rodríguez (Team Katusha) |
| Teams' champion | Team Sky |
| Nations' champion | Spain |
The 2012 UCI World Tour was the fourth edition of the ranking system launched by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 2009. The series started with the Tour Down Under's opening stage on 17 January, and consisted of 14 stage races, 14 one-day races, and one team time trial (which only counted towards the team rankings). The Tour of Hangzhou which was originally included in the list of races was postponed until 2013.
The 18 UCI ProTeams competed in the World Tour, with UCI Professional Continental teams, or national squads, able to enter at the discretion of the organisers of each event. The ProTeams, which were obliged to take part in all 29 events, were:
GreenEDGE (known as Orica–GreenEDGE from May onwards) was a new team, while FDJ–BigMat regained ProTour status, which it lost for the previous season. These teams replaced HTC–Highroad, which folded after 21 years, and Team RadioShack, which largely merged with Leopard Trek to form RadioShack–Nissan. A change in sponsorship saw Quick-Step become Omega Pharma–Quick-Step, while 2011's Omega Pharma–Lotto became Lotto–Belisol. Two teams each changed their names twice to reflect changes of sponsorship: Team Saxo Bank reverting to its previous name, having been known as Saxo Bank–SunGard in 2011, before becoming Saxo Bank–Tinkoff Bank in June; while the serial addition of new sponsors gave rise to the names Garmin–Barracuda and Garmin–Sharp.
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