World championship TTT standoff ends after UCI and AIGCP agreement

Doubts over WorldTour participation in the teams time trial event at the 2016 UCI Road World Championship have been resolved after the International Cycling Union (UCI) and the group representing teams came to a compromise.

The  2016 UCI Road World Championships men's and women's team time trial are the only events at the championships that are not nation based and carry mostly bragging rights for the winner.

Team BMC won the 2015 event ahead of Etixx-QuickStep and Movistar. The 2016 race will be held 9 October in Doha, Qatar.

The AIGCP announced in August that all 18 WorldTour teams would boycott the event after what it claimed was an abuse of power by the UCI in making participation compulsory - made more difficult because of increasing commitments to an already busy and costly race calendar.

SBS will broadcast the men's and women's elite individual time trials and road races live. Details to be announced.

Today both organisations announced a compromise, one which now makes the event non-compulsory for UCI WorldTeams. 

The compromise also means no UCI WorldTour points will be awarded (previously 200 points went toward the WorldTour teams classification),

This brings the men's TTT event in line with the rest of the UCI Road World Championship programme.

The UCI and AIGCP confirmed that 10 WorldTour teams will be in Qatar in October, including AG2R, Astana, BMC, Etixx-QuickStep, Movistar, Orica-BikeExchange, Giant-Alpecin, Katusha, LottoNL-Jumbo and Sky. 

More teams are expected to announce their participation but those are likely to come from the Pro Continental and Continental ranks.

Both organisations said they would work toward a revised future version of the event.

The women's race is unaffected by the decision.