jimcox said:
Very new to following pro cycling and am interested in the dynamics of who goes where and when. If this case there are races in both Utah and Poland. Some big names are in Utah, some in Poland. Who makes these decisions of which riders/teams show up where? Hope this makes sense.
Poland is a World Tour event, so all World Tour teams are beholden to turn up. There are up to 4 wildcard teams (to be selected from ProContinental teams and/or a national selection from the host country) at the organizers' discretion. For one-day races, the number of wildcards can increase to a maximum of 7.
Utah, however, is not a World Tour event. It is ranked .1, which means any team from the top 3 divisions can compete if invited. World Tour teams will tend to pick and choose which .HC and .1 races they enter based on a few factors. These include but are not limited to:
1) preferred races for particular riders' calendars
2) races where the team's sponsor has a particular interest
3) races they feel they have a good shot of victory, for teams short on cash and/or UCI points.
As a result, you see US-interested WT teams like BMC in Utah, but a team like Movistar, which has no such interests, does not turn up. Conversely, BMC do not enter the small stage races in Spain, but these are important to Movistar.
ProContinental teams can enter any .HC or .1 competition, and especially in countries with strong cycling traditions such as Belgium, Italy and France tend to enter all the races in their long national calendars. They are also entitled to apply for wildcard entry to any World Tour race, where they will be invited at the organizers' discretion. Typically, the Belgian ProContinental teams can expect invites to de Ronde, Gent-Wevelgem, E3 and the Ardennes races, Italian teams tend to get the Giro, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milano-Sanremo and the French teams get Roubaix, Le Tour, the Dauphiné etc.. This isn't sacrosanct, sometimes there are more teams worthy of an invite than there are invites available.
Continental teams can enter any .1 or .2 race, plus .HC races in their home country (Europe)/continent (elsewhere). They cannot enter World Tour races (this is mainly as Continental teams do not have to be biopassport compliant, whereas top 2 level teams do), but riders may enter a World Tour race as part of a national selection.
Once a race calendar has been selected and teams know which races they are doing, they will then choose who they send where at their own leisure based on the races particular riders prefer to target, which riders train by racing and which riders prefer to train and only enter selected events, which races are suited to particular riders (i.e. maximising your chances of victory) and which races the sponsors request particular riders at (for example, the money thrown at getting Armstrong to the Tour Down Under, or when sponsors demanded Cavendish in the Tour of California in 2010 when he preferred to be at the Giro).