CYCLING:Professional road racing team managers will meet tomorrow and next Friday in a final attempt to avoid a split at the elite end of the sport after the world governing body, the International Cycling Union (UCI), ordered teams with ProTour licences not to start the first major stage race of the year, Paris-Nice.

Chaos in the sport looms if the meeting does not help to resolve the dispute between the Tour de France organisers Amaury Sport Organisation (ASO) - which also runs Paris-Nice - and the UCI. Their differences go back to the establishment of the ProTour, which dictates which teams ride what events, something the race organisers will not stand for.

Teams may be thrown off the ProTour if they ride the Paris-Nice, but the Tour organisers have the ultimate sanction of deciding who rides their race, the only event that really interests sponsors; they also have the backing of the biggest organisers in Italy and Spain.

The UCI sent a letter to the ProTour teams scheduled to ride Paris-Nice, which starts on March 11th, stating that if they ride they will be in contravention of ProTour rules.

The race is being run as a French national event after ASO took it off the international calendar following a UCI request that the organisers follow the conditions set by the ProTour and include all 20 squads on the circuit, which ASO won't do.

At present, the squads are split. While the German T-Mobile squad, one of the biggest sponsors in the sport, said it would follow UCI's guidelines, the French professional teams are mostly set to attend Paris-Nice.

Guardian Service