UCI Rankings Riders Update | Remco Evenepoel climbs to fourth; podium in sight as Red Bull-BORA star shines in Spain

This week's update features points scored in one-day race Muscat Classic and stage races Volta Comunitat Valenciana and Etoile de Bessèges. A handful of national championships (such as Colombia and South Africa) and the Asian Championships are also included.

You can check the previous UCI Rankings update here. Mauro Schmid and Jay Vine were tied in first place of the 2026 leaderboard last week, but that is not the case anymore. The Swiss rider has proven to be in outstanding shape at the beginning of the 2026 season, and he already added two victories to his palmarès, besides of a second place in the GC of the Tour Down Under in mid-January. Last week he won the Muscat Classic, increasing his tally to 950 points. An excellent season start both for him and his team Jayco AlUla.

The podium is completed by Jay Vine and Tobias Lund Andresen, even if none of them have competed in the past two weeks. In the case of Vine, it is unclear when he will be back on the bike, as the Aussie rider suffered a hard crash in the last stage of the Tour Down Under due to a kangaroo invading the road, causing him a wrist fracture. He has been sidelined indefinitely but remains in the second place nonetheless, thanks to the 665 points he obtained in Australia.

In fourth place, we see a very familiar face. Remco Evenepoel already has six wins this season, even if we are still in February. Last week, he got two stage wins at the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana plus the general classification, which gave him over 300 UCI points.

Notwithstanding the neutralization of the time trial (the stage was ridden but times did not count for the GC due to strong gusts of wind), he went full gas and won it. He went on to win the queen stage afterwards as well, dropping everyone else with a powerful acceleration and winning solo. He accumulates 572.9 points, and that amount will keep growing next week, as he is set to ride the UAE Tour.

Most of the rest of the top 10 is formed by riders that went to Australia, with the only exception of Christian Scaroni. The XDS Astana rider has climbed to sixth place after another strong performance, this time in Oman, where he finished fourth in the Muscat Classic. He will rise even more next week once the results of the Tour of Oman are added to the rankings, given that he secured the GC the last day of the race.

In the year-long rankings, Tadej Pogacar obviously remains firmly in control, almost doubling the second place which is Jonas Vingegaard. The top 3 is not going to change until the next weeks, once the biggest stars begin their season. That might happen very soon, as Del Toro will lead UAE at the UAE Tour, while Vingegaard recently announced he will not make his season debut there due to the crash he suffered while training in Spain.

The aforementioned Evenepoel did not manage to overtake Mads Pedersen, but he got much closer. The gap keeps shrinking and the Dane star suffered a hard crash at Volta a Comunitat Valenciana that put his spring campaign in jeopardy, meaning he will not be able to defend many of the points he obtained last year.

There were no changes inside the top 10, as most of the riders have not even begun their season. The rider climbing the most spots inside the top 100 was Luke Plapp, who was third at the Muscat Classic and went up 26 positions, sitting in 84th place.

On the other hand, the rider losing the most spots was Santiago Buitrago, who did not defend the 260 points he got last year at the Volta a Comunitat Valenciana.