World Tour Relegation

39 thoughts on “World Tour Relegation”

1. Does the “small print” mean there will always be 18 places in next year’s WT, so that if, say, Lotto decides not to apply (or folds) the 19th team, assuming it applies, will get a WT place?

   • No, it’s not fixed at 18, there can be 17 etc but it’s complicated here, it depends on which teams do what and then the knock-on effects to other teams etc.

   • The actual UCI regulations are worth a look here, as they specify that making a valid application and meeting all the other criteria comes before the stage of evaluating the ranking positions.

     2.15.011
     “The licence commission awards licences on the basis of the following criteria:
     – ethical;
     – financial;
     – administrative;
     – organisational.
     If the number of candidate teams (UCI WorldTeams and UCI ProTeams) that meet the criteria set out above is greater than the number of licences available, the applicants will be subject to the application of the sporting criterion in accordance with articles 2.15.011a.”

     2.15.011a
     “The sporting criterion is evaluated with regard to the UCI world ranking for men UCI teams – 3 years, as defined in article 2.10.044.
     The 18 top-ranked teams in the above-mentioned ranking, among the teams having applied for a UCI WorldTour licence in accordance with articles 2.15.009 and 2.15.010 and having met the criteria defined in articles 2.15.011c to 2.15.011f, are deemed to meet the sporting criterion”

     The key words are in the second sentence of 2.15.011a – ”among the teams having applied for a UCI WorldTour licence in accordance with articles 2.15.009 and 2.15.010 and having met the criteria defined in articles 2.15.011c to 2.15.011f” – i.e. if a team in the top 18 has not applied or the application has failed on other criteria, they are not considered to be in the top 18 eligible teams and other teams below them move up one.

     An important precedent was set in this area early in the last decade when the Court of Arbitration for Sport effectively ruled that the UCI does not have the discretion to reject applications which satisfy all criteria. Their denial of Team Katusha’s licence was overturned and the team readmitted to the WorldTour ranks.

     This is why last time around there were a handful of teams submit applications even though they were outside the top 18 – just in case one of the other applicant teams failed before getting to the point of looking at the team rankings.

2. I’m very pleased that Astana have managed to get out of the relegation zone. I spent the entire Giro rooting for Astana & against Picnic & Cofidis. (Intermarche were so invisible I never actually noticed they were there enough to root against them!) I think I was the only viewer not wanting Bardet to win a stage, from a points point of view.

   If I may point out a typo: “Lotto’s tiny haul of points this tear”, which is rather a Freudian slip as Lotto probably should be weeping over their lack of success this year!

   • You should thank the Chineese candies for that

3. It’s hard to see Cofidis having the quality to score much in WT and 1/2.Pro races. Are there enough points available in the French 1.1 (Occitanie, Tour de l’Ain, Polynormande, Limousin-Perigord, Poitou, Isbergues…) events to save them? The must have been counting on Carr though he hasn’t ridden all season through injury. Maybe Fretin can convert his multiple top fives into victories.

   Picnic-PostNL appear to have more potential in top races where the big points are to be found.

4. “Jakob Fuglsang is retiring and we’ll see if Chris Froome and Michael Woods do the same”

   Will Froome have a choice? His contract is up, he’s forty, which is far more than his points haul these past few seasons. He must have the intelligence and knowledge to make a good team manager though he should have enough salted away to not need the pressure and hassle. Could Ineos tempt him with a role?

   • Is Froome’s contract up, I think he might have 2026 left?

     • He doesn’t show up on PCS for 2026. If he gets paid for another year by anyone it’s highway robbery.

       • He is robbing an asshole genocide apologist billionaire, honestly this feels like a service he doing the world.

       • No it’s not. It’s called a contract. Both sides entered it willingly so if 2026 is included it’s business.

5. I frankly never believed Astana could do it, they impress me. But as you say the problem is the year after, as we could see with Intermarché too who did a fantastic early 2023 (if I remember well) and were never able to repeat it (points wise ; the green jersey last year was far more important for the image of the team). You’re right about Arkéa : they had an objective, and once reached they stopped to have a new one, it appears. They let Hofstetter go, for instance, a big points machine, and started to try bigger and riskier challenges (Démare, transforming Vauquelin in one of the best classification riders, etc). Maybe they saw too big for their budget ? Once you know you’re in WT for three years, maybe you become more ambitious, and forget to take all the points you should take if you’re a small team…
   That being said, and as you point out, the biggest problem for a lot of those teams is not promotion but existence itself… It’s possible that TotalEnergie, Lotto, Intermarché, Arkéa all disappear next year, which would rather simplify the task for remaining teams, and leave all calculations very fragile. Do you know if some of these teams tried or are trying to get together and fusion to survive ?

   • A merger could be an answer for some teams, eg Lotto and Intermarché might work although easier said than done. This post is about the men’s World Tour teams but these have other teams and there could be moves to preserve or fund the women’s teams if the men stop, eg Arkéa.

     • Is the Total/Ineos merger credible? The Escape collective rather humorously named this “my chemical romance”.

       • I think it’s more a case of Total Energies moving their sponsorship across to the Ineos team than a merger. Rumours that Bernadeau has French sponsors lined up to replace them which would allow a team to continue at ProSeries level.

     • There have been rumors going for Lotto to merge with Flanders-Baloise. Putting all the Belgian government money into one team. Just rumors I heard being shared by Flemish commentators during the Ronde (I think, could’ve been another Flemish race)

       • Yes, I remembered that for an upcoming piece here too and I think it was José De Cauwer. One problem is making it “too Flemish” as Lotto has a duty to cover all the country etc.

6. Is Jayco safe? I fear the story of their demise will be: SYates won a GT the year after he left (and did sweat FA in 2024), and BO’Connors massive 2024 points haul at AG2R was.. in ‘24. 😖

   • They need to or Jack Ward will be without a team next year!

   • Yes, Jayco are pretty much safe. They are 2,700 points ahead of Cofidis and 2,500 ahead of Picnic. Both would need to overtake them (as well as Intermarche). Jayco are picking up enough points for that not to happen.

   • Hope not to be proven wrong, but in recent years they and Movistar have been hugely respectable, sticking to their 10K/season solid performance line, racing more than decently according to the place which somehow “unfairly” the reality of “new cycling” has left for them. No sudden peaks of points with miracle performances or when a big new sponsor comes in with, ahem, “new bikes”. Very pro. And with a solid long-term women team, too, getting resources and performing well.
     I’m rooting for them.
     FDJor EF probably deserves to be added to the list, too, although I didn’t at first as they’re clearly a step or two above in performance terms.

7. I don’t think relying on Arnaud de Lie is going to work out well for Lotto. I’d be amazed if he even starts the Tour. Not that they have anyone to fill his place, Viviani hasn’t won anything serious since 2019 at Quickstep.

   • Most would say that although not exactly “winning” a couple of Olympic (silver and bronze) medals are serious enough, or – if you’re strict on “winning” – two track World Championships and an European one look pretty decent anyway.
     But I guess that it was just that the words “on the road” didn’t make it to the keyboard 😉

     Jokes apart, I agree that Viviani is one of the many “QS effect” examples. His signing by Lotto was one of the most crazy and unexpected I’ve ever seen. One must imagine that the idea was teaching some youngsters racecraft and discipline which Elia’s got a lot of but which both appear to be a serious weak point of many talents at Lotto. Doesn’t seem it worked much, either.

     At Cofidis he dropped like 3-4 steps down, but for a weak team it was still a decent deal. Its relative importance in points within the team wasn’t much different from the one he had for QS (he brought home some 13-14% of the season points for the latter, some 10-12% at Cofidis), although surely immensely below expectations. Yet, “context” matters a lot, especially in the “new” covid and postcovid cycling: in fact, after a dire 2020 year (when he still got some 3 top 5 in TDF sprints, valuable for the French sponsor, and 3 top 10 at the Giro, all of them valuable in terms of points), in 2021 he brought home like 8 victories (sponsor-wise, small French races) out of a total of 12 the team got as a whole.

     At INEOS one must suppose that the focus was really on the track both for athlete and team. In two seasons he’d got 3 medals at Cofidis (worth noting that the Worlds were in France), in three seasons he collected 6 at INEOS, with the Paris Olympics as the obvious finish line. Of course you race in national colours, but apparently INEOS is interested in that aspect all the same, which is worth applauding.

     All in all, he was far from his peaks, still professional enough to bring added value and results to the teams which hired him, which especially in the case of INEOS must have been fully aware of what they were buying (when he began with them he was 33 yo, too!).

     But… Lotto…?!? Lotto made no sense at all to me. And still doesn’t. 36 yo! The only possible explanation is, as inrng pointed out about the Giro, some contract factor we can’t know about, like zero wage and only victory bonuses, like, dunno, he’ll bring some points anyway but as he won’t win we’ll pay him zero. Something like that.

8. Am I right that it’s all or nothing for Lotto (assuming they survive)? Either they take a WT spot, or they miss out on automatic invites completely due to their 2025 score being so poor. Please let me know if I’ve missed a trick there!

   • Right, but with the 2023 and 2024 points haul, they’re totally safe (assuming they survive). Think they were absolute 8th best team or so.

     To give you an idea, Cofidis should score in what remains of the season as many points as they did in the whole 2024 just to reach where Lotto is currently, even if the latter didn’t get any single further point.

     • Lotto are safe for the points, my concern is whether they have the funding and backing to continue next year in the World Tour.

       They’ve lost a co-sponsor for this year and have had to cut back on racing, all this when they’ve unloaded Van Gils and his – from memory €400k contract – and got money from selling him. So next year they’ll be even shorter on funds unless Lotto/Belgian politicians cough up and how do they have a team to ride all three grand tours and the rest of the calendar?

9. I realise this may be picking at an old sore but it still doesn’t sit well with me that Jayco came away from the Giro having scored fewer points than Tudor, Alpecin, Soudal, Decathlon & Movistar amongst others

   • Jayco seem to be safe, but if you look at where they stand compared to similar teams (I would put EF in that category), they have been seriously underperforming so far this year. I feel bad for Matt White, but I can understand why there would be some discontent about Jayco’s current place in the pecking order.

     • Maybe Lotto ought to sign Matt White rather than former sprinting champs or b-list cyclocrossers?

   • This is an artefact of the team ranking being composed of the team’s best 20 individual rider rankings for the year being added together, rather than just taking the team’s best result for each day (and GC) of racing regardless of which rider achieves it.

     It is wrong that a team whose domestiques work together to get their leader to a stage win can be outscored by a team adding together points for a handful of minor placings.

     • I’d need to check details, but in this specific case I’d rather say that it’s because other teams cared about/succeeded in GC (Movistar), which brings a lot of points, plus they had some repeatedly close placings in stages besides winning (Alpecin), or both (Tudor). As I said, I could be wrong, but I suspect that even taking just their best scorer each day and in GC, same for Jayco, the latter would still sit behind. Alpecin probably scored all of his points with Groves only or nearly so! (And a Brianza break for Planckaert).

       Of course we could debate about image/marketing/fans perspective vs. points: an epic solo stage victory impacts more than a sprint, winning from a quality break isn’t the same as from a desperation break etc. Spanish television spends a decent quantity of their air time in boring stages arguing about the virtues of an invisible 8th place in GC “à la Zubeldia” (or Rubio) vs. an epic stage win “à la Nieve” with no GC (the Basque dualism is an example by me, they don’t name names of course).

       I appreciate that points might (intelligently) highlight some slightly different metrics than pure marketing value, as the latter already “rewards itself”.
       The system should be constantly checked and revised to keep it balanced, because otherwise it will naturally tend to take over other values and shape excessively racing as such.
       An appropriate system is only the one subject to permanent review and strategic tilting by decision-makers.

       The effects on racing can be varied or even opposite. For now, my very superficial impression is that the points system has been an added value to spectacle in many minor races, whereas the impact on bigger races has been minor, but generally positive anyway (more of a seriously “combative” attitude by some lesser team). No much negative effect whatsoever.

       As for Jayco, we shouldn’t forget anyway that they *salvaged* their Giro with two beautiful stage wins, but they had failed their GC intentions, plus both Harper and Plapp barring their stage victories barely got any top 10 at all, whereas, say, Prodhomme at Decathlon was hugely active, besides obtaining a spectacular victory, too.

     • I´m far from sure that this was the case – at least where Tudor, Alpecin, Soudal, Decathlon and Movistar are concerned.

       Jayco did have two stage wins and a couple of Top 10 finishes, but I would be ready to wager sum on four of those five teams scoring more points than Jayco did *if only the team´s best rider (on each stage and on the GC) got points*.

       It is certainly my impression that none of the above teams were playing the game of trying to place several riders instead of working for one rider.

     • Further fun fact. I checked details for one single team, QS Soudal. I *didn’t* make the maths to verify if they’re actually above Jayco, but I was so puzzled by the sheer possibility that I went and saw how the hell did they score at all.

       Well, it was a …wolfpack effect! Cub version. They scored with a lot of small placings by different athletes. Many many many top 10s. The funny thing is that I believe that the only day/classification two of them both scored from was the ITT in Pisa. So it was not what DaveRides says in this case, either.

       As for Jayco, that’s another aspect they failed big time, because the likes of Zana, Double, Bouwman (bad luck in his case) could have been expcted to perform quite better.

       I’m actually starting to think that a mix of fandom and fascinating stages brought many people (including me) to have a skewed opinion on Jayco’s Giro, pretty much overestimating it when compared to other teams, especially, and it’s what matters when we speak of points, in terms of a *team* POV, and consistence, too, steady presence in the high side of the affairs.

       However, it’s not by pure chance that all these teams eaxh at their level can care *zero* about points. They’re doing their thing well, so they’re in, full stop.
       We shouldn’t forget that as DaveRides remembered us all recently, points’ actual main function is “to pick, when you have to”, i.e. they’re used in order to “discard” the “less deserving” teams when you’re forced to choose, it’s not obvious that this should also imply that the system identifies well who’s “more deserving”, too.

     • It’s a points system and it counts what a points system should count, points for placings. an d the system is the same for all, period.
       In football you don’t get more points for a good game with suspense. You get 3 whether you score a 1:0 in minute 3 or in 90+6 o if you win 5:4 after a thrilling game.

10. [OT] Official route available for all 2025 TDF stages. Worth checking out. As suggested back at the time, Rouen and Toulouse look even more interesting than they already did. Modest total D+ and a short total distance exp. in Toulouse will make it easier to «survive» their finales, which OTOH are quite spicy as they have respectively 1,800m D+ in some 75 kms and 1,450m D+ in 45 kms. Belbeuf just before what ASO had shown beforehand adds significatively to Rouen’s finale, as the mere fact of having seven small côtes (albeit mostly easy) in a row does add to Toulouse’. Planimetry is also interesting, both finales are on twisting roads.
    But we’ll know more as soon as inrng is publishing their previews with live scouting of the terrain…

    • what is a “D+ “? Discovery+?

      • Short for dislevello positivo 🙂

        “”Dislivello positivo” translates directly to “positive altitude gain” or “total climbing distance” in English. It refers to the total elevation gained during a hike, climb, or other activity where the route goes upwards.”

11. Do riders of the level Van Eetvelt, De Lie, Teuns and Aranburu have relegation clauses in their contract?

    • De Lie and Van Eetvelt are already relegated. 😉 They are riding for a second tier team.

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