BikeExchange-Jayco leader Simon Yates has slammed the UCI team rankings system and the risks of relegation from the WorldTour that it has imposed on his squad.
As of August 9th, BikeExchange-Jayco were lying 15th overall, having moved away from the relegation zone. But with a Grand Tour and multiple teams at risk in the lower rungs of the WorldTour, the squad’s situation is among those which remain precarious.
Yates is currently in the countdown for the Vuelta a España, a race he won in 2018 and where he will battle again for the overall classification.
But apart from being in fighting form for the Vuelta, Yates pulled no punches when asked about the UCI points system.
“For us, specifically, it’s been terrible,” Yates said.
“We’ve not had our [Australian] season” – a reference to the Santos Tour Down Under, which has been cancelled for several seasons because of COVID-19 though it will be back on the calendar next year – “for several years now.”
“Going back to 2020 I had to pull out of the race with COVID and on paper, those are races where we could have swung a lot of points and we’d be nowhere near the bottom.”
“I’m sure that there are other teams in the same situation, not scoring points here or there or whatever, and from that point of view I don’t think it’s necessarily been fair over these three years.”
Yates said that in terms of his day-to-day racing program and how the ongoing relegation battle could affect him, “nothing has changed at all. For the team, we’re racing the same way and always trying to win and race as best we can. I don’t know how we can improve that. The last time I checked we were fine. We’ll see how we get on at the end of the season.”
Although he has come back with a string of minor wins in Spain this summer, Yates had a rollercoaster first half of this season and in the Giro d’Italia in particular. A hugely promising start including a time trial win was followed by a bad knee injury and some major time losses, a mini-comeback in the race’s second half, an abandon and a spell of almost a month completely off the bike.
Yates could have ridden the Tour de France but said he would not have been in any state to go for a good result. Instead, he paced his recovery, and “then I went from there.”
This brings him to the Vuelta. Yates has not taken part since he won, but he enthused that it “was great to be back. It’s a race that suits me and I’m looking forward to it.” He was equally upbeat about his chances, saying “I won it before, so I…
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