31/05/2023

Miguel Angel Lopez and Nairo Quintana's ex-teams sink in UCI rankings

For different reasons, Team Arkéa Samsic and the Astana Qazaqstan Team decided not to continue into the 2023 season with the most valuable riders in terms of points that they had in their respective squads: Nairo Quintana and Miguel Ángel López. That, to a large extent, is causing them to sink in the UCI rankings.

Beyond discussing here the reasons for the departure of the two Colombian climbers (we remember that Nairo left after testing positive for tramadol in the last Tour de France, not admitting it and filing an appeal with the TAS and that López has been splashed by an investigation of doping drug trafficking in Spain, but none have tested positive for doping in any analysis), the truth is that neither the French nor the Kazakh squad have been able to replace their stars and are at serious risk of not obtaining a WorldTour license in 2026.

Miguel Ángel López, on him and Nairo Quintana: "I don't know if it's because we are Latinos, but when we Colombians dominate they take advantage of it to sink us"

There's a lot left, yes, but both squads look very bad. Astana has based its campaign on trying to win stages in grand tours with Mark Cavendish, and with that, it is not going to work. Arkéa has a young and exciting team, with riders who aren't bad for minor races, but they don't have experts who can give them many points. Thus, at the moment Arkéa is more than 1,000 points away and Astana is more than 2,000 behind the cut. A lot of work ahead for both squads...