Another week, another look at the promotion and relegation standings. The chart above now says plenty in one glance, Israel and Lotto-Soudal are almost tied for 19th place but well below the relegation line while a four-way scrap for 18th place.
What’s Changed Since Last Week?
- Israel-PremierTech and Lotto-Soudal remain in the relegation zone
- Ineos, Ag2r Citroën and Intermarché were the week’s top scorers
- Bora-Hansgrohe, Movistar and UAE were the three lowest scorers of the teams featured here
- As things stand TotalEnergies and Lotto-Soudal would get wildcard invites to the grand tours next year
- Arkéa-Samsic continue their romp up the charts, now overtaking DSM
- Cofidis are just 169 points behind Movistar now, having started the year 1,332 points back
Israel scored big thanks to Paddy Bevin’s win in the Tour of Turkey, 200 points for the GC alone but this progress was relative as they were still beaten by Lotto-Soudal and Cofidis who scored more points in the same week.
Movistar took only got 30 points in the week and Cofidis are closing in on them, and EF and Bike Exchange too. This sets up a tighter four-way battle for 18th place. Now 18th place is the safe place but only at the end of the season. Sitting 18th now is to be constantly looking over the shoulder in case Lotto or Israel pick up speed. The Giro looms and it’s going to be a big deal for Movistar, EF and Bike Exchange because a high GC finish means molti punti.
Animated bar chart race
Background info
If you’re new to the story of promotion and relegation this year and want it explained then click here.
To see how many points are available in each race or category, click here.
Looking at EF it seems astonishing that their season’s best individual points score was Uran for tenth on GC for Itzulia Basque Country. They will be hoping for better from the remaining Ardennes races and Romandie though who will provide those much needed points is unclear. Uran looks more like a possible top ten rider now than a candidate for podium places. Have they been more blighted by illness than other teams?
Re: EF I’d say that their model in recent years is suffering from the high toll it pays to the points allocation system, as it’s instead thought to maximise (decent) exposure for (little) money rather than being highly successful in mere “technical” terms.
An easy example: stage winning is great in terms of visibility and easily sold to sponsors, while at the same time relatively “easier” than *winning* big Classics or the final GC in short stage races, not to speak of making a top-5 in a GT’s general classification. What a pity for EF that it’s precisely what rewards you with way less UCI points than one might expect…
Agreed Gabriele. EF are an interesting, varied and attractive team. As you say it’s a pity that model doesn’t seem to satisfy the UCI criteria. I’m hoping to see some success in the Ardennes and Giro. Powless, Padun, Shaw, Carr…
The same could possibly be said for Israel’s model?
There’s little to no chance of them trawling around the ‘lesser’ French races and picking up lots of points as other teams are doing.
Although I suspect that there will be virtually zero sympathy for Israel’s situation, which admittedly is partly self-inflicted through their recruitment policy.
I’d say less for Israel. If you started to rank EF’s best rider alongside Israel’s best rider and then keep doing this soon you’d find the EF rider superior to the Israel one. Same if you tried EF alongside Lotto-Soudal by the way.
Carthy got dropped today on the descent on the Tour of the Alps, although Chavez hung with the other GC contenders. They were nowhere to be found in Roubaix. Whether it’s sickness or something else, they are definitely underperforming. It has been a tough tough spring for EF.
Good point, can’t imagine Lachlan Morton has picked up many UCI points in recent times but outside of the megastars he’s probably gained more publicity for his sponsors than anyone.
Illness has been a problem this season and they’ve struggled in the one days when riders like Valgren or Bettiol might have scored more. The should do better in the summer stage races and have some GC riders, but so do Movistar, Bike Exchange in Yates which is making 18th place quite close.
These weekly updates are brilliant! A better cycling soap opera than the in-fighting at a Movistar Grand Tour team. As has been mentioned many times here, IPT seem doomed for relegation.
I just looked at their roster and yeah, they look in trouble. Poor Woods is going to have to race for GC in all the GT’s he does this year and not stage wins as a result.
I’m not really sure if riding GC is optimal for him in terms of UCI points. Let’s say he rides for stages, wins one, gets one second place, second in polka dots and a few other top 5 places. That’s comparable to 8th-9th GC place, can he really do significantly better than this in GC?
Of course he might ride for stages and fail to achieve anything significant, but also he might crack while riding GC, lose half an hour one day and finish 15th. Tour stages are worth 120 points each, if you do better than taking one due to being in the right place at the right time and staying anonymous for the rest of the race, your points total can be nice. Bahrain’s best scorer last tour was not Bilbao (9th GC, best stage result was 7th) but Mohoric (2 stages, outside of top 30 GC).
But he’d be lucky to win one and you’re not including the stage placings he’d get just by going for GC. Also a lot of suppositions about how he’d also get KOM etc. Top 10 in a GT shouldn’t be so hard for him De la Cruz was 7th in Vuelta last year. Woods is easily better than him.
Honstly, beside rirders and staff, is there anyone in the cycling world who would miss Irreal PT?
Have they anything to offer like the excitement to watch Wanty-Goubert’s riders or any Kermesje?
Just think if the money spent on Froome’s contracts had been used wisely on young riders, Israel-PT could probably have been home and dry for UCI points and a considerable number of promising riders had the chance they merited. Chris Froome managed a meagre 18 UIC points in 2021 and to date in 2022 none.
I don’t dislike Chris and find it sad to see a once-great rider trailing round with the also-rans.
He’s going for an elegant and classic(al) Ringkomposition: from nought to top in a day and then it falls the night and it’s nought again.
Even Beloki – who was a TdF contender yet not the sort of absolute top athlete Froome supposedly was – came back quite much better from his also devastating accident, although he never was able to reach again a serious top ten in any high-level. Still, he was sometimes hitting top-20 stuff in GT stages (or thereabouts), while Froome looks to be generally struggling to make top-40s in any sort of race. Injuries are of course very personal, but the comparison is still a bit shocking.
Beloki was only 29 when he crashed in 2003, Froome was already 33 when he crashed in 2019. Not much difference relatively, but in elite athletic terms it can be light years.
Agreed. And Froome also had had already more years on top.
As a Canadian, I very much appreciate all that IPT have done to provide space for Canadians in the pro peloton and would be sad to see them relegated. I also quite like Mike Woods who as to be one of the best in the world at short, super-steep climbs. Maybe he’ll be able to pull something special out in Fleche tomorrow to help turn the team’s fortunes around.
Froome has 4 top 40 results from 114 race days since returning. His best result was 22nd in a UAE stage last year. I am rooting for a comeback but so far no luck.
Chris Froome is lucid, intelligent, determined, and probably a little ruthless. With his knowledge and those qualities he could surely make a good team manager, though maybe he would prefer to put his feet up in SA or Monaco and enjoy the spoils.
I’d be scared of him driving the team car. His head would always be down looking at the dash 😉
Has anyone done a breakdown of points scored / age of rider?
After a string of 19 yr-old winners last week I’m starting to wonder about the value of experience to teams. Sure, you only want one winner on your squad but if these are becoming younger, each manager has to take more risk and recruit directly out of youth and junior ranks.
Of course teams like Intermarche with older winners disprove this, but consider also the riders that Savio sells-on from DroneHopper/Androni or the feeder teams that have brought young talent to Bahrain and FDJ among others, whilst IPT are floundering after signing tons of experience.
In the old days there were kapos who took all the wins in large part by marshalling young talent to serve ( eg; Basso with Nibali and Sagan ) and, oh yeah, they had the right doctors and a lot more bullying to help.
So is there a pattern where winners are now aged, say, 23 on average instead of 34 as before?
ProCyclingStats offers some numbers on this (though, sometimes, not the ones you’d want). It’s on their in-house “PCS points” ranking, but it should be pretty much the same for UCI points.
https://www.procyclingstats.com/statistics/riders/points-scored-by-riders-u23
or on a “generational” perspective:
https://www.procyclingstats.com/statistics/start/points-per-age
To note that the points distribution throughout the season is probably not even (rosters don’t change much until August, grand tours are in the second half of the season and typically field older riders, etc.) so I’d take the stats for the current year with a grain of salt.
Overall, it seems the “top years” of a rider are slightly earlier in their career than they used to be (26-27 instead of 28yo), maybe a feature of increased professionalism, maybe a bigger focus on technology/physiology measurements, or a bigger role of directors when it comes to race tactics that leads to rider experience being less of a factor. In recent years, some extraordinary top riders like Pogacar may have a big impact on those stats.
Having 19 year olds winning or placing in pro races though, that is surprising – and new. Magnus Sheffield or Arnaud De Lie are 19-20 yo and winning at pro level already, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Romain Gregoire seem like they are in shape to win a pro race, and of course there’s Remco. Teenagers breaking on to the pro scene used to be extremely rare, and now there are 2-3 every year.