EF and Movistar under pressure as new UCI rankings reveals rival teams all scoring big

The new UCI points ranking doesn't reveal any dramatic change, however some small gaps have been made and on this week both Movistar Team an EF Education-EasyPost failed to get the points whilst all surrounding teams have kept the pressure on.

According to the update by Raúl Baqueri, over this week Cofidis were the big winner from this battle, taking 386 points from Guillaume Martin's win at the Tour de l'Ain and due to Victor Lafay and Axel Zingle's performance at the Arctic Race of Norway. The French team jumped from 17th to 15th place in an important move for their survival's sake. Team BikeExchange scored a modest 130 points, however enough to open some gap to EF Education-EasyPost who failed to score a single point this week, and Movistar Team. 

The two latter teams now sit closer to the red line, with Movistar an exact 500 points ahead of Lotto Soudal who performed strongly at the Eurométropole Tour to bring them closer to maintenance. Israel - Premier Tech made strong moves aswell however, taking 277 points this week with Itamar Einhorn's result at the Europeans, but most importantly Hugo Houle's second place at the Arctic Race of Norway. The gap between the Israeli and the Belgian team is not of 238 points, a gap that can be closed as soon as this week if they repeat the same performance.

This week will see the Tour of Denmark, Tour du Limousin, the European Championships time-trial and the start of the Vuelta a Espana which will see further evolution on the table, with now just under two months to go the pressure is serious within these teams.