With the Giro d’Italia about to approach, a quick look at the team standings. There’s the three year promotion and relegation cycle far away on the horizon but also the one year rankings and based on these right now Bardiani-CSF could be starting their final Giro on Friday.
The table shows the team rankings for 2026. As a reminuder it’s based on the combined haul of the 20 best points scorers on each team. There’s more detail on the system here and the points tables here. Blue bars are WorldTeams, red are ProTeams from cycling’s second tier.
Tadej Pogačar’s just collected 800 points from the Tour de Romandie partly thanks to four stage wins (60 each time) and the GC (500 points), as much as winning a Monument. Isaac del Toro is their second best scorer and can you guess the third? It’s an anagram of “forensic bony toe”. The team is on 27 wins already.
Jayco are doing well, largely thanks to a 2,037 haul from Mauro Schmid as without him they’d be among the likes of Movistar and NSN.
Ineos’s top scorer is Egan Bernal. Dorian Godon is next, building on his strengths as a finisseur to now win regularly in World Tour races. The team is second to UAE when it comes to wins with 19 but clearly not second on the rankings.
Cofidis are doing well, in large part thanks to Ion Izagirre who has announced his retirement but isn’t slowing down yet.
Last week Lotto-Intermarché were in 18th place but have the biggest move this week up to 14th thanks to Georg Zimmerman’s win in Eschborn-Frankfurt and Arnaud De Lie back to winning ways in the Famenne Ardenne Classic. Lotto always seem to struggle during the core classics season on their home roads, recent results confirm this.
Groupama-FDJ have been languishing but Roman Grégoire’s performances in the “Ardennes” have been salvatory, without him they’d be sandwiched between Caja Rural and Burgos. This lack of results has seen mild public criticism of Valentin Madouas for sitting at the back of the peloton and hoping to sail past when others crack, only few crack these days. L’Equipe reports they’re shopping for a GC contender and a sprinte, who is on the market and who suits?
Problems are piling up for EF. Richard Carapaz is out of the Giro, following on from long term injuries for Neilson Powless and Harry Sweeney, plus Ben Healy missed the classics with illness. Remember they have launched a public appeal to find a replacement title sponsor and the reduced visibility won’t help.
Picnic-PostNL now have their first win thanks to Casper Van Uden in the Tour of Türkiye, they’ve been the last World Tour team without a win. Nor have they been close very often, they’re 30th in the rankings. There are rules to say only the top-30 teams are eligible for a wildcard invite to the grand tours but they’re safe for invites as a World Tour squad, but it illustrates the depth of their slump. Remember they have a one year World Tour licence, they’re on watch to stabilise their finances but their plight is not easy for them and their sponsors. It’s very early the promotion and relegation cycle but need to turn things around to convince the UCI and fans alike that they belong with the best.
The top-30 rule does apply to Bardiani CSF 7 Saber, only they’re off the chart in 34th place, with 764 points. So as things stand they’re ineligible for next year’s Giro. The Giro will be difficult for them as Visma and UAE will leave few crumbs for the other teams, let alone them. They’ll need to score elsewhere. Rivals SolutionTech Nippo Rali have proved more adept here, signing riders who have scored in their national and continental championships like Carlos Samudio or house sprinter Dušan Rajović who has 10 UCI wins this season, one more than Pogačar.
With Picnic getting a win, they and Groupama-FDJ, Movistar, Soudal Quickstep and Jayco are the squads left without a World Tour level win this year.
There’s no news on a replacement sponsor for Total Energies. Whether it’s Total, Visma, EF or others, the deadline is not 31 December. Instead it’s already getting late. Teams need to know their budget for next year today in order to recruit and retain riders, as plenty of deals are being done in the market now.
For all the movement up and down the rankings tables at the moment, will all these teams continue to exist in six month’s time?
It’s an anagram of “forensic bony toe”
From ChatGPT:
“That one’s sneaky, but it resolves cleanly: forensic bony toe → Ben O’Connor, Froome
So the anagram actually contains two cyclists: Ben O’Connor and Chris Froome.
If you were expecting a single “famous cyclist,” the standout name in there is Froome—but the full anagram uses both names perfectly.
If fdj are looking for a gc leader – Roglič is out of contract next year and would take a guaranteed solo leader role at the Tour.