The future of top professional cycling teams is taking shape as the WorldTour and Women’s WorldTour three-year rankings now build toward the 2029 cycle.
For the first time, both men’s and women’s teams will be judged on three years of results—the women previously had two-year cycles. At the end of 2028, only the top 18 men’s and top 15 women’s teams will be eligible for the next round of three-year licences.
While it is early days in the current three-year cycle, some teams are already struggling or winless in the first three months of 2026, while others have continued to dominate the rankings.
Article continues below
The men’s peloton has completed four WorldTour stage races and three one-day races as of March 17, and, as has been the case for years, UAE Team Emirates-XRG sit firmly atop the UCI Team Rankings with 6841.12 points, almost 2,500 clear of second-placed Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
So dominant is the team that they’ve built their tally with world champion Tadej Pogačar racing so far only one day, winning Strade Bianche. The team’s depth was on display elsewhere with Isaac del Toro winning Tirreno-Adriatico, while riders like Jan Christen, António Morgado and Jay Vine have been consistently racking up points in the early season.
UAE Team Emirates also lead the team win count, having already taken 16 victories with eight different riders – Del Toro, Pogačar, Vine, Morgado, Christen, Marc Soler, Juan Sebastian Molano, and Tim Wellens.
Surprisingly, it’s not Visma-Lease a Bike in third despite Jonas Vingegaard’s impressive victory in Paris-Nice, but XDS-Astana, who have perfected the art of covering all of the bases. They have only nine victories compared with Red Bull and Ineos Grenadiers’ ten, but have spread the points haul nicely, with 14 riders scoring more than 100 points, giving the Kazakh team the second-highest median score per rider (148), behind UAE Team Emirates (199).
Visma-Lease a Bike are 684 points behind Astana but climbed three spots after Vingegaard’s Paris-Nice performances, which were worth 703.57 points (fractions thanks to the team time trial). Matteo Jorgenson is the team’s top scorer with 875 points, including his second overall at Tirreno-Adriatico and results at Strade Bianche and the Faun Drôme and Ardèche Classics.
The Dutch team’s early-season concerns are…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…