 As the Critérium du Dauphiné was a UCI World Tour event , all UCI ProTeams were invited automatically and obligated to send a squad . Originally , eighteen ProTeams were invited to the race , with four other squads given wildcard places . Team Katusha were not originally invited to the race , but when they later regained their ProTour status after an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport , the race organisers announced their inclusion , bringing the total number of teams competing to twenty @-@ three . 
