With the drop of Drapac to the continental level after the merger with Cannondale, the Tour Down Under organizers only expect to grant one wild card for the 2017edition. Race director Mike Turtur has told Cyclingnews that he plans to invite the Australian national team as usual.

"If you look at our history, we decided as an organisation to support Australian cycling in another way,” he said. “We do a lot in the way we support and implement the national team sponsored by UniSA and give them the opportunity to many young cyclists to be exposed to this level of racing.”

Since the race joined the WorldTour, the only other teams to have received a wildcad are Drapac in the last three years and BMC Racing (which lined up world champion Cadel Evans) in 2010. Next year, there will be no Australian pro continental team and for various reasons, Turtur cannot afford to invite other teams. 

"There are many high quality international Pro Continental teams, but our budget restricts us in the number of teams we can have start,” he said and went on to explain the logistical challenges.

"Our policy is that if there is a Pro Continental team registered in Australia that we would wildcard them without question," he added. "If we have more than one, the higher ranked team of the two will get the wildcard.”

In 2017, UniSA will be the only team invited to the Tour Down Under in addition to the 18 WorldTour teams.