The pressure is growing and there is already talk of increasing the invitations in the Grand Tours

The topic of invitations to the Grand Tours is one of the usual talking points at the beginning of each season. Invitations that traditionally have gone to Pro Team teams from the organizing country, even though it is not always the best for the competition. That is why the organizers once again insist to the UCI to grant them additional invitations.

La Vuelta a España and Giro d'Italia would have asked for an extra wildcard from the UCI

After the meeting of the International Association of Cycling Race Organizers held last week and asked about the invitations for La Vuelta a España, Javier Guillén made it clear that the only Spanish team guaranteed to participate in the next edition of La Vuelta is Movistar Team, who has a spot by right as part of the World Tour.

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"As of today, we have two invitations for a lot of teams, everyone knows the history of invitations, but there is a lot of pressure. What the final result will be, I don't know, but certainly I wouldn't pay too much attention to information that doesn't come from the official source of La Vuelta" Guillén concluded regarding some information that indicated that La Vuelta could break the tradition of granting these invitations to two of the Spanish ProTour teams: Caja Rural-Seguros RGA, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Kern Pharma, or Burgos-Burpellet-BH.

However, on the other hand, Guillén left the door open for the invitations to go to other teams: "there are very strong teams eager to come to La Vuelta," in clear reference to ProTour category teams that have a high level. Not Lotto or Israel-PremiertTech, who have a guaranteed spot for being the top two ProTour teams last season, but teams like Uno-X Mobility or Q36.5 who aspire to compete in the best races with strong sporting arguments. Would Guillén be able to deny an invitation to the Swiss team if they guarantee the participation of Tom Pidcock?.

It is for this reason that, like every year at this time, the Grand Tours once again ask for at least one additional invitation, although the UCI remains adamant in keeping the number of cyclists in the peloton of these races reduced, arguing that fewer riders mean greater safety.