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The International Cycling Union (UCI) announced an initiative on Monday which should end its three-year conflict with the Tour de France organisers over its ProTour series.

"I'm extremely happy to announce new developments which should bring an end to this conflict," UCI president Pat McQuaid told a news conference.

McQuaid said the development followed talks requested by the owners of the Tour de France, the Amaury Group, under the auspices of the International Olympic Committe (IOC) and the mediation of former ski champion Jean-Claude Killy.

Killy is an IOC member and a former president of Tour organisers Amaury Sports Organisation.

"As a result of the discussions that have been going on, we can today announce an initiative for professional cycling that has been agreed by the Amaury Group," McQuaid said.

IOC president Jacques Rogge took part in the talks, held at the highest level within the Amaury Group with its owner, Marie-Odile Amaury.

The plan is to retain the current road cycling calendar, with the UCI Pro Tour on the one hand and on the other the Historical Calendar, which regroups the monuments of cycling like the big Tours and the oldest one-days classics.

NEW SYSTEM

Results in both calendars will award points in a new ranking system which will be used in the future to decide on race entries.

"We will also create, within the framework of this calendar, a ranking system for individual riders, teams and nations."

The ranking system would be used from 2011 onwards to determine the 17 teams automatically qualifying to take part in the Tour.

The world's biggest cycling race was held this year outside of the UCI and under the jurisdiction of the French Cycling Federation (FFC), leading the UCI to consider sanctions against the FFC.

Tour organisers decided freely on the race entry, refusing teams with a past doping record like the Astana team of Spain's 2007 Tour champion Alberto Contador.

Organisers of the Tour, the Giro and the Vuelta have been at war with the UCI since the introduction of the ProTour series, which aimed at guaranteeing the presence of the leading 20 teams in the major races.

ASO rejected the ProTour partly because they saw it as a closed circuit, a situation the ranking system should correct.

McQuaid said he was going to meet organisers of the Giro and Vuelta to discuss the issue and that he had received a "positive response" from the teams and national federations he had approached.

He hoped an agreement would help "lift the sanctions on the French Federation" at the next UCI congress in Varese, Italy, in September.

(Source: Reuters)