One more week is behind the men’s pro peloton and another block of racing has influenced the three-year UCI Team Rankings that will determine which teams will remain in the WorldTour in 2023 and who will find themselves in the dreaded relegation zone.
The big winners this week were BikeExchange-Jayco, who clambered over EF Education-EasyPost and Cofidis into 15th.
The Tour de Pologne and Vuelta a Burgos and the lesser-known races like the Czech Sazka Tour and Tour of Leuven played key roles in the standings. While the biggest teams continued to hoover up points – Ineos Grenadiers earned twice as many or more than most teams with victories in Poland and Burgos (757pts) – the week was another dismal one for Israel-Premier Tech, who only managed to gain five points.
Again, the Israeli-Canadian outfit were penalized by the points accumulation being limited to the top 10 scoring riders of the season. While Jenthe Biermans earned 50 points with fifth place in the Tour of Leuven, those didn’t count. Only Omer Goldstein’s five points for third place on stage 4 of Vuelta a Burgos made the cut.
That leaves the team in 20th place, further behind Lotto Soudal. The Belgian team had another solid week, with Victor Campenaerts taking 125 points for the victory in Leuven, Stef Cras adding a respectable 16 points with 25th place overall in Poland and – because every point is going to be important – even 16th place for Florian Vermeersch in Leuven added three points.
Lotto Soudal whittled down their gap to 18th-placed Movistar by 104 points. It’s still a yawning 659-point chasm, however.
Above the relegation zone, BikeExchange’s soaring week of 318 points came thanks to Kevin Colleoni’s third place in the Sazka Tour, Matteo Sobrero’s fourth place, Lucas Hamilton’s 19th place and – worth four points – Kaden Groves’ 52nd in Tour de Pologne.
EF Education-EasyPost kept plodding along with 110 points thanks to Ruben Guerreiro’s 80-point haul, Esteban Chaves’ 25 and Hugh Carthy’s five points in Vuelta a Burgos. Although the American team lost one position to BikeExchange, they broadened their advantage over Cofidis, who earned just 23 points this week.
Movistar didn’t do themselves any favours this week, earning only 40 points with minor placings in Poland and Burgos.
Alpecin-Deceuninck and Arkéa-Samsic coasted through the week, getting some minor results but not from their top 10 riders. Even so, the two ProTeams are firmly positioned ahead of the teams fighting relegation and…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at CyclingNews RSS Feed…