UCI ProTour 2006
The UCI ProTour was a series of important stage wins and one-day races of road cycling . The ProTour, which was held annually by the UCI World Cycling Federation until 2010 , took place for the second time in 2006 .
Overall winner Alejandro Valverde , like Danilo di Luca the year before , laid the foundation for his success in the spring. With victories at the Walloon Arrow and Liège – Bastogne – Liège , as well as podium finishes at the Tour de Romandie and the Tour of the Basque Country , he won the white jersey of the ProTour leader in April and never gave it up. With his second place at the Vuelta a España , he expanded his lead so much that the white jersey could only theoretically have been torn from him. Samuel Sánchez only fought his way to second place in the overall standings in late summer and autumn thanks to his victory in the championship in Zurich and good placements in the Vuelta and the Tour of Lombardy . As in the previous year, Paolo Bettini managed to move up to eighth place with a win in the last race. The best German was Stefan Schumacher, who won the Eneco Tour and the Tour of Poland .
As in the previous year, Team CSC won the team championship because they were among the best with at least one driver in almost all races. As in the previous season, Gerolsteiner finished sixth and the T-Mobile team made it to eighth place.
Spain won the Nations Cup ahead of Italy and was basically a reflection of the season. It seems as if the Spaniards have discovered the spring and autumn classics for themselves, while the Italians have slacked as classic specialists.
run
Teams
 France
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 Spain
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 Italy
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 Germany
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 Belgium
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 Netherlands
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 Denmark
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 United States
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 Switzerland
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particularities
- The Spanish-Basque Euskaltel-Euskadi team exclusively employs Basque Spaniards and French as well as Latin Americans of Basque origin.
- The Saunier Duval-Prodir team has a Spanish license, but its actual headquarters are in Switzerland.
- Team Milram is named after its sponsor, a German dairy cooperative. Since it emerged from the Italian team Domina Vacanze, it has an Italian license and is also operated by an Italian operating company based in Bergamo.
- The Astana team emerged from the Liberty Seguros-Würth team. The former main sponsor Liberty Seguros stopped sponsoring due to doping allegations, whereupon the Kazakh consortium Astana became the new main sponsor. A short time later, Würth ended its involvement as a co-sponsor.
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