As we head into September, the end of the season comes sharper into view and with every passing week, the fight for the 2023 WorldTour places becomes increasingly important.
This week sees Israel-Premier Tech fall further into peril of relegation, while Lotto Soudal inch closer to safety and things tighten dramatically in the cluster of teams just above the ‘relegation zone’.
But beyond the tally of points, the major developments concern the system itself, with the impact of COVID-19 being felt ever-more-keenly and leading to questions over fairness from pro riders.
Meanwhile, there’s a potentially bigger cloud gathering as Arkéa-Samsic have now been stripped of Nairo Quintana‘s points from the Tour de France due to his tramadol positives, but that could change if the Colombian’s appeal is successful. The problem being that a final resolution via the Court of Arbitration for Sport could take months and not come before WorldTour licences for 2023-2025 are decided later this year.
The latest standings
Before we get into the areas of controversy, a look at the latest weekly rankings update issued by the UCI shows us that things are getting increasingly tight at the bottom of the three-year ranking that sees 20 hopefuls fight for 18 WorldTour licences.
Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto Soudal currently occupy the bottom two places – as they have for a long while now – and would, as it stands, be relegated from the sport’s top-tier for 2023.
However, the situation is far more worrying for Israel, who are not only rock bottom and not picking up points, but also face a situation where they do not qualify for the parachute prize of automatic wildcard invites to all 2023 WorldTour races.
That luxury falls to the second-division team with the highest points tally from the previous season, and Israel are being outscored by TotalEnergies in 2022.
Israel-Premier Tech scored less than 100 points in the past week, with desperate mid-season signing Dylan Teuns yet to get up to speed. They find themselves 1,063 points from safety – that now being Movistar in 18th place. They are also 800 points shy of TotalEnergies’ tally for this season alone.
If things stay the same, the team of Teuns, Chris Froome, Michael Woods and Jakob Fuglsang will be a second-division outfit next year, doing enough to earn invites to one-day WorldTour races but not the Grand Tours and other stage races.
Lotto Soudal remain in the relegation zone but their outlook is far more positive….
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