The latest UCI rankings add up points from the Vuelta a España, Grand Prix de Québec and Montréal, GP de Fourmies and the truncated Tour of Britain and the biggest winner of the week has been the Movistar Team, who vaulted out of 18th place in the 2020-2022 UCI Team Rankings into 14th and far out of reach of the dreaded relegation zone.
The week also saw some rumours that the promotion/relegation scheme might not go forward for 2023 as planned, with both EF Education-EasyPost boss Jonathan Vaughters and Israel-Premier Tech owner Sylvan Adams calling the system “promotion or death”. Several others have questioned why the UCI would want to limit the number of WorldTour teams at a time when there are 20 teams with budgets to field top-tier squads.
There have been hints of a compromise, an increase of the maximum size of the peloton back to 200, which would increase the number of wildcard teams available to GrandTour organisers and allow the WorldTour to remain at 20, but the UCI has insisted that no decision has been made.
Most likely, any changes would be announced after the annual meeting of the Management Committee at the World Championships next week.
If the scheme does go ahead, Israel-Premier Tech did themselves little favours in the latest rankings, gaining a scant 138 points to Vuelta a España winners QuickStep-AlphaVinyl’s massive 1,898-point haul.
Of the top 22 teams in the world, only TotalEnergies and Uno-X earned fewer points. The French outfit lost two positions after not participating in the Vuelta, gaining 125 points, while the Norwegian team got no results.
That leaves the Israeli-Canadian team with little hopes of avoiding relegation and, either a fight from Sylvan Adams or a potential dissolution of the team.
While Lotto Soudal again made gains to climb out of 19th, they remain stuck in the relegation zone but, rather than chasing Movistar, their nearest rival in 18th is now Cofidis, who plummeted down the rankings by three spots, while the gap to the next rung remains has yawned out to 702 points for the Belgian team. Lotto Soudal remain determined to eliminate the gap by sending stacked teams to the late-season one-day races.
Cofidis’ strategy of sending Guillaume Martin to Canada failed to produce the intended results, with only 40 points gained there. The French team lost sprinter Bryan Coquard from the Vuelta, but Jesus Herrada salvaged their race with a stage win, a third place on a stage, and eight points for 56th on GC.
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