And suddenly the red alert went off. Or rather, suddenly someone realized that the red alert has been sounding for some time but has gone unheeded until now. The announcement of the official closure of Team Flanders Baloise at the end of the season has opened people's ears and was also heard in Aigle, where silence had reigned.

The "fault" lies with Tom Van Damme and his dual role: on one hand he is president of the UCI Professional Cycling Council and a member of the Board of Directors, and on the other he is president of the Belgian Federation. In other words, on one hand he and the entire UCI have done little or nothing to support ProTeam formations and on the other hand he finds himself dealing with the exit of the only Belgian team belonging to this category.

A category, moreover, that continues to see its assets eroded: of the sixteen formations entered this year, in addition to Team Flanders Baloise, Team TotalEnergies and Equipo Kern Pharma are dangerously at risk. Both main sponsors, just as the Flemish Government had done already in 2025, have announced the conclusion of their commitment and at the moment there are no announcements or positive indications.

The problem is always the same and we have denounced it many times: ProTeams need certainty, homogeneous calendars and realistic point allocations. Let's give a non-Italian example to be impartial? Returning to compete in the Tour de France after more than thirty years, Caja Rural RGA pinned on a feather in its cap but in terms of points earned - during a race of the highest level - it took a bloodbath compared to formations that in the same period made a killing of points in China and in second-tier races in Europe. And in the end, a point is worth... a point and therefore makes the difference.

ProTeams need a dedicated, defined and certain calendar, they urgently need a dedicated, defined and certain ranking: who knows if this time in Aigle they understood it or if they continue in their stubborn mission of exclusively privileging top-level cycling.

Yet, still remaining impartial and away from Italy, precisely the closure of Team Flanders Baloise has reignited the spotlight on the importance of the work carried out by a regional formation that in its history has registered 218 Flemish riders (many of them track cyclists...) bringing 111 of them to the highest levels of cycling, 87 in UCI WorldTeams and 24 in UCI ProTeams.

Certainly, today Devo formations are all the rage but it's easy to understand that there isn't room for everyone, that there are riders who need a year or two more to make their mark and emerge, that the role of ProTeams can and should continue to be valuable.

Also because we must not forget that at the higher levels it's not all roses and flowers: how many WorldTeams are searching for a main sponsor, a second name of weight, new resources to manage a company (WT squad, Devo formation and women's team) whose costs are ever increasing in the face of competitive results often not up to par because the budget does not allow for the signing of one of the big names who currently make the difference?

in the photo, Tom Van Damme (from uci.ch)