Teams that are going to race at the 48th Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey between April 22-29, 2012 are announced. In accordance with the increasing demands, the Organization Committee decided to raise the limit of 22 teams to 25 this year. The attendance limit of 200 riders - 25 teams, 8 rider limit for each, - announced to have packed fully. During the recent years, because of the consistently increasing standards of the organization, the popularity of the TUR and therefore the attendance requests ascended. Thus, Organization Committee was obliged to determine elective criterions.

Tour of Turkey Organizator Aydın Ayhan Guney, "We had to reject some of the teams. The most important criterion during the team election process is for the teams to be from different regions and countries. For instance last year we chose Colombia team and the year before that, a Brazilian team was chosen. Another important criterion is the mediatic impact of the teams. Since Tour of Turkey is telecasted in more than 120 countries, the mediatic impact of the teams was a quite important fact that we took into account during the elimination process."

It would be proven if numeric values are digged, that the popularity of the TUR has geared up, such as; in 2010, Tour of Turkey kicked off with 15 teams, that increased up to 22 in 2011 then this year it reached up to 25 with the highly increased demand and obliged the Organization Committee to reject some of the applications. As a little insider info, there will be a couple of more surprises about the TUR in addition to the ones we announced to you before. 

The pro-team attendance limit was lifted up to 8 from 6 this year. During the selection of those teams, popularity was a quite important factor. Lotto-Belisol with their Andre Greipel will challenge their prior partner Omega Pharma - Quickstep mix. Australia's brand new team GreenEdge's schedule points that Robbie McEwen will ride his second to last race in Turkey before his retirement. Since the team riders may change till the last days before the race, commenting about squads or team strategies is pretty impossible since the teams make changes according to their rivals' squads and possible strategies.  The winner of the 2011 Tour of Turkey, Alexander Efimkin will come this year again to defend his title and he's pretty assertive with his strong team. Team Manager Vassili Davidenko said "We're coming to claim it!" 

Pro-Continental teams include strong names due to the obligated elimination because of the 18 professional licensed team limit. For instance Europcar that made history at the Tour de France will be racing in our country this year. Andalucia with their strong climbers, last year's victorious Team Type 1 and brand new team to get its pro license next year Project 1t4i will also be there for the challenge this year.  

Teams to Attend 48th Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey 2012: