Amid the chaos surrounding the potential Soudal-Quickstep/Jumbo-Visma merger and the latter team’s reported release of Primož Roglič, the bulk of the 2023 season’s results are in and the rest of the men’s peloton are likely already thinking about the next WorldTour relegation to come in 2026.
The UCI implemented a promotion/relegation rule for the 2020-2022 seasons that adds a sporting requirement to WorldTour license requirements where teams must be in the top 18 in the World Rankings at the end of each three-year cycle to earn a spot.
The first changes under the new rule at the end of last season were fraught with drama, with Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto Dstny losing their places in the top tier as Alpecin-Deceuninck and Arkéa-Samsic were elevated into the WorldTour.
Teams were displeased with the points system that led to the relegations and complained the scheme weighted the one-day races and ProSeries events too heavily relative to the Grand Tours.
After the dust settled, the UCI rejigged the points structure, giving points deeper into the stage finishes of Grand Tours, and giving the Monuments – Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia – a tier of their own just below the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España. The rest of the WorldTour races remained spread across three lower tiers with less points value.
They also expanded the number of riders from each team whose points contribute to their World Ranking tally from 10 to 20 riders.
In the above graphic, the latest UCI World Ranking from September 26, 2023 shows the new scheme hasn’t made much of a dent in the top of the rankings, with UAE Team Emirates, Jumbo-Visma, Soudal-QuickStep and Ineos Grenadiers still in the top spots.
Astana Qazaqstan and Arkéa-Samsic are in danger of losing out come relegation time, with TotalEnergies and Uno-X still not in sight of the WorldTour. Lotto-Dstny and Israel-Premier Tech have made great strides in getting promoted back into the top tier.
There have been some surprising outcomes so far and signs that the smart teams have learned from their mistakes using the system to their advantage in the first year of the new relegation cycle. Other teams are struggling to repeat their strong outings in the previous three years.
There are a few distinct strategies that appear to be working.
Lift all boats
UAE Team Emirates are currently the…
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