UAE wins the ranking for the first time (congrats @Matxin_), despite Jumbo's historic season. Arkéa and Astana are in relegation zone. Lotto and Israel will have wildcards to all WorldTour in 2024, and Uno-X to all WT classics. Olympic rankings at the end of the article 👇
Analysis: We explain why UAE finished ahead of Jumbo-Visma in the UCI rankings
CyclingFriday, 20 October 2023 at 13:00
Although Jumbo-Visma took the overall wins in the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España, it did not finish the year as the team with the most accumulated UCI points. The Dutch-based outfit finished 2023 with 29,651.45 points, just over 1,000 points behind UAE Team Emirates with 30,958.18 UCI points.
A world away, more than 12,000 points behind UAE, is Soudal Quick-Step and more than 13,000 points behind the team with the biggest budget, INEOS Grenadiers, after a more than disappointing campaign. It must be said that the UCI scoring change has determined UAE's victory over Jumbo. As Raúl Banqueri explains in Lanterne Rouge, with the system in place until 2022 the Dutch would have scored more points (20,403 vs. 19,656).
Another key is the fact that Tadej Pogacar has been the highest-scoring man of the year with over 1,000 points ahead of Jonas Vingegaard. He is by far the best rider in one-day races of the year, something the new system rewards more. Winning 2 Monuments like Il Lombardia and the Tour of Flanders, taking Amstel Gold Race and the Flèche-Wallone and his fourth place in Milan-San Remo and third in the E3 Saxo. He also took third place in the World Championship. All this has earned him a whopping 3800 points.
Thus, comparing Vingegaard's overall victory in the Tour de France (1,300 points) plus the accumulated points for the stages and activities, the Dane earned a total of 2,575 points for the Grande Boucle. Pogacar, on the other hand, earned 2,195 (a difference of just 380 points). Second place plus points for stages in the Vuelta a España gave Vingo 1,747.5 points, a nice sum, but not even half of what Pogacar earned in the classics, hence the final difference (the rest of the points between the two are similar for what he earned in one-week or shorter races).
The last key to explain why UAE has 'beaten' Jumbo-Visma is that it has made better use of its pool of riders. Visma has 3 of the 5 cyclists with the most points of the year (Vingo second, Primoz Roglic fourth and Wout van Aert fifth). Despite this and Sepp Kuss winning the Vuelta, men like Adam Yates, Joao Almeida, Marc Hirschi or (to a lesser extent) Juan Ayuso have added a lot;
Anyway, we'll see in 2024, but considering that they lose more than 5,600 points for the departure of Primoz Roglic and that they will surely return to focus on the Tour de France as a priority objective, it's hard to say that UAE is not again favorite to be the best team next season;
Article by Juan Larra (@MrGladbach)
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