Is Contador free to go?

The UCI announced today that it was still evaluating the Pro Tour license application for Astana (as well as Caisse d’Epargne, Saxo Bank, Team Sky and Eusktaltel-Euskadi) and that they would make a final determination on their licenses by November 20th.

I, and many others I suspect, took this to mean that Alberto Contador would have to wait another month to learn if he could free himself from the team. CyclingNews.com, however, did a little digging into UCI regulations. The applicable regulation reads:

The standard UCI rider/team contract (2.15.139 article 8.1.f) states, “if, on 20 October of the year preceding a year of registration covered by the present contract, the UCI ProTeam has not submitted a registration file containing the essential documents,” the rider may terminate the contract “without notice or liability for damages”.

If there is not some other regulation that somehow overrides this one, it would seem that Contador is free to leave Astana. He’s been courted by Quick Step and Garmin-Slipstream, and I would say that Quick  Step probably leads the possibilities as they said they would bring in 5 riders of Contador’s choice if he joined the team.

Tags: alberto contador, Caisse d'Epargne, garmin, pro tour, Quick Step, Slipstream