American Team Twenty20 has opted to compete in 2020 as a national women's elite team under USA Cycling instead of obtaining a UCI Continental license. Team owner Nicola Cranmer told Cycling News that the decision will not affect time trial world champion Chloe Dygert.

"We have a very specific schedule for Chloe this year, as we do every year. 'She will only race on the road in North America, it doesn't have to be UCI, and there's no advantage for us with this year's schedule. She will concentrate on track and time trials."

Dygert won two world titles in the junior women's time trial and road race in Richmond in 2015 and has spent most of her time since then training and racing on the track. During the road season, she is a member of the development team Twenty20. Until her fourth place finish at the UCI Road World Championships last September, she had never raced in Europe, let alone longer races such as the elite women's 150km parcours in Yorkshire.

A few days before this road race, she won the individual time trial and took the world title ahead of Anna van der Breggen and former two-time champion Annemiek van Fluten.

Dygert is likely to win gold at this summer's Olympics and has her sights set on racing in the time trial and on the track. In fact, she told Cycling News that she intends to follow in the footsteps of her coach, Kristin Armstrong, and compete in the next six summer Olympics. Armstrong is a two-time world champion and three-time Olympic gold medalist in the discipline.

Cranmer's decision to forgo her UCI Continental women's team license was partly due to the cancellation of the Amgen Tour of California. Race organizer AEG announced in October that the men's and women's World Tour events would be suspended beginning in 2020. With the cancellation of the Tour of California, there are currently no World Tour events in the United States.

Obtaining a UCI Continental license costs just under $11,000, including a Cranmer and UCI fee of €6,500 (about $7,000) and a USA Cycling processing fee of about $4,000. A list of fees for team registration (opens in new tab) can be found on the USA Cycling website. This is not a UCI fee, but an amount put into a block account that the UCI can use to protect the athletes' right to receive payment if the team fails to comply with its obligations.

According to Cranmer, it used to be worth it to obtain a UCI license, pay the license fee, and maintain a bank guarantee because it allowed national teams to be invited to World Tour events like the Tour of California.

Since teams like the Twenty20 race primarily on the North American domestic scene and do not travel abroad to compete in other World Tour events during the season, at least this year's UCI license was not worth the high license fees and bank guarantee to hold. It was not.

Cranmer says she saved roughly $30,000 by not having to pay the combined UCI and USA Cycling license fee to be on the UCI Women's team and not having to continue holding the $25,000 bank guarantee. She instead paid USA Cycling a $400 registration fee and a $350 race clean fee to become an elite women's national team.

She said she will now get her bank guarantee back and will have to submit those funds again when she applies for her UCI license again next year.

"Yes, the $11,000 UCI/USAC fee will be avoided and the bank guarantee payment will be "saved." We could always pay the bank guarantee fee, but it would be difficult for the team to put that fee into the UCI bank account," Cranmer said.

"Since the only national race requiring a license was the Amgen Tour of California, we did not have to register as a UCI. The freedom as a non-UCI team gives us the agility to respond to rapidly evolving multi-surface racing events, entire race calendars, sponsorship models, and media coverage."

In addition to Dygert, the Twenty20 roster includes Jennifer Valente (USA), Jasmine Duhring (Canada), Georgia Simmerling (Canada), and Sofia Arreola (Mexico).

The rest of the road team includes Simone Boillard (Canada), Jennifer Luebke (USA), Shayna Powles (USA), Natalia Franco (Colombia), and Emma Grant (UK). Also on the team will be mountain bike specialist Lee Davison (USA) and Paralympic athlete Jamie Whitmore (USA).

"With five athletes heading to Tokyo, our focus will be on North America," Cranmer said. Track racing is a big part of the schedule for these athletes, and the UCI Track World Championships begin at the end of February."