Threat of relegation hangs above Picnic PostNL like a dark cloud: "The situation is a bit tricky"
Cycling
The words "UCI ranking" must be a banned substance at managment of Team Picnic PostNL. Although the Dutch team is currently located in a safe 18th place, the pressure coming from XDS Astana, who closed a gap of 4.000 points already, can be felt on every step. And in case of relegation, Picnic PostNL is not on the way to secure any automatic wild cards either as a 5th team on annual ranking...
"We know that the first months, like March, are a bit tricky for us," sports director Matthew Winston acknowledges in an interview with WielerFlits. But with the same breathe, he points out that not everything went downhill from the start of 2025: "We did win (Nils Eekhoff in Nokere Koerse, ed.), but we know that we are getting into shape now."
One of the team's leaders should be younger climber Max Poole, but his 83 UCI points are not going to be enough to save Picnic PostNL's WorldTour license. At least as things stand at the moment. "We've had a bit of bad luck so far this season," he says in an interview with WielerFlits. "A lot of riders have dropped out in the last period. The situation is a bit tricky, but if those riders return we can pick up the thread again."
At the Tour of the Alps, Picnic PostNL already showed up with a better collective performance, securing two top-10 spots in the general classification with Poole (7th) and Romain Bardet (10th). Yet they need more as XDS Astana is plotting to counter their points income at the on-going Tour of Turkiye where their GC hopes (Harold López and Wout Poels) should have an upper hand over Frank van den Broek.
In the meantime Poole and Bardet are preparing for Giro d'Italia, where Picnic hopes to shake things up by scoring a lot of points. But is there also more pressure on the climbing leaders? "No", Winston is clear. "If you put pressure on them, they will make mistakes. We focus on our tasks and on our process. We can only control what is within our power and that is in the race. We have to make the race and ride as a team."
"We shouldn't worry about what all the other teams are doing, because then we'll go crazy and that's when the pressure comes. It comes naturally. We have to stay close to our values as a team and what we're best at as a team," the team manager believes.
Ondrej ZhasilCycling Journalist
Ondřej Zhasil is a cycling journalist at CyclingUpToDate and has been part of the team since 2023. He is based in Ostrava, the third-largest city in the Czech Republic, and covers professional cycling across the main UCI competitions, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España. A key focus of his work is startlist analysis and pre-race coverage, where he examines team selections, rider line-ups, and tactical scenarios ahead of major events.
Alongside WorldTour coverage, Ondřej has developed specific expertise in junior cycling and in racing across East Asia, including competitions in China and Japan. He also maintains a broad working knowledge of other disciplines and levels, including cyclocross, while continuing to expand his understanding of mountain bike racing.
Ondřej holds a bachelor’s degree in Mathematics and Physics, which supports his analytical, data-driven approach to performance and race analysis. In his reporting, he regularly uses ProCyclingStats for results, statistics, and historical context. He places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles promptly when new, verified information becomes available.
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