will be known as a Grand Tour trophy competition.  

Entry into the events in 2006 will be granted to all ProTour teams with a further two wild card selections at the organisers discretion.   In 2007, a still to be decided ranking system will be used to automatically select the leading 14 teams with a further eight provided with wild card entries.

The GT trophy competition will have a total prize purse of ?2 million to be split between the top seven teams.   In order to encourage participation in the three major stage races, the race organisers will pay any team who competes in all three, an appearance fee of ?100,000.

Finally, this week, we would all like to pay our respects to Charly Gaul, former winner of the Tour de France and Giro d?Italia.  
Gaul passed away in hospital last week having suffered a pulmonary embolism.  

The ?Angel of the Mountains? died just short of his 73rd birthday.

Until next week, send your thoughts to me at ian@roadcycling.com.  Before sure to check out the latest views and opinions in our Forums. ? And check out a new Roadcycling.com advertiser coming to the site this Thursday. Our many advertisers make Roadcycling.com possible.

Ian