Good news for Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert? UCI sports director announces planned rule change that could shake up the rankings

The sports director of the UCI has announced a controversial idea that could change how points are scored to gain WorldTour licenses. In a chat with Sporza, Peter Van den Abeele explained that the UCI may create a new rule that means points in off-road disciplines count towards the UCI road rankings.

It seems to most strange idea, but Van den Abeele does have an explanation. “What we will strive for is that points from other disciplines will be included in the team classification that determines the WorldTour licenses.

“A team like INEOS Grenadiers has a top rider in Filippo Ganna who competes in major track events. That’s great, but in return INEOS doesn’t get any WorldTour points for that. We want to discuss and change that. In that way we can offer added value to the team by stating that we fully support them when they let riders compete in other disciplines.”

Van den Abeele went on to say that this change would not take place until at least 2026, but confirmed that some of the multi-discipline stars, like Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock could win points for the UCI rankings off-road.