The national championships were the great highlight of the past week in the world of cycling but besides handing out new and special jerseys; these one-day races also offer up a lot of UCI points and one team in particular took the biggest slice of cake: EF Education-EasyPost.
It was Lidl-Trek who had the most victories in national championships with a total of 7 medals however the American team only managed to score 715 UCI points throughout these races, as it generally lacked results outside of the winner. Cofidis, Arkéa B&B Hotels, Alpecin-Deceuninck and TotalEnergies, amongst the top teams, were those who scored the least, not breaking the 200-point barrier.
In first place with 958 points scored was EF Education-EasyPost. A significant gap to second place as well, the team won five national championships... Richard Carapaz won the Ecuadorian time-trial earlier in February, Sean Quinn won the American road race back in May; and this Sunday there were no less than three winners in road races: Alberto Bettiol (Italy); Rui Costa (Portugal) and Darren Rafferty.
But the team really benefited from it's depth, bringing in three silver medals and four bronze medals; becoming the team with the most success in all of the national championships overall. This helps boost their UCI rankings just before the Tour de France.
UAE Team Emirates were second in the nationals when it comes to points scored, further cementing their lead in the rankings. They had the biggest amount of medals with five bronze, three silver and six winners. These were mostly in time-trial events. Domen Novak was the only road race winner in Slovenia; whilst Brandon McNulty (USA); António Morgado (Portugal); Tim Wellens (Belgium) Nils Politt (Germany) and Felix Grossschartner (Austria) will all be wearing their new colours against the clock - some of them already at the Tour de France. BORA - hansgrohe was third with 747 points, just ahead of Lidl-Trek.
EF is the team that has scored the most UCI points at the 2024 national championships, taking advantage of having riders of 16 different nationalities. Sean Quinn (🇺🇸), Alberto Bettiol (🇮🇹) Rui Costa (🇵🇹), Darren Rafferty (🇮🇪) will wear their national champions' jerseys.
