UCI Rankings Team Update | Jayco AlUla top January rankings over UAE following Australian and Spanish success

The 2026 season has just kicked off, and with that comes the first UCI ranking update of the year. The first week of racing only featured races in two countries. On the one hand, we had the first World Tour event of the season, the Tour Down Under. On the other hand, three one-day races took place in Spain: Classica Camp de Morvedre, Gran Premio Castellón - Ruta de la Cerámica and Clàssica Comunitat Valenciana - Gran Premi València. Besides, there were as well a handful of national championships in late 2025 and early 2026 that are also included.

The team topping the ranking is surprisingly not UAE, but Team Jayco AlUla, which has had a terrific start of the season and already accumulate almost 1000 points. The biggest contributor was Mauro Schmid, as he finished in second place at the Tour Down Under, securing 445 points in the process, which is almost half of the entire team's tally.

The team got one win but that was not in Australia, but in Spain, where Michael Matthews outsprinted everyone and took home the win, meaning he has recorded at least one professional victory in 16 different seasons. Ben O'Connor had a solid season start as well, finishing in tenth place at Tour Down Under. In addition, he obtained 18 points in the Australian national championships that took place early January.

But he wasn't the only rider bringing points from the nationals. Luke Plapp finished second in the road race, after a tactical disasterclass from Jayco that gave Patrick Eddy his first professional victory. Regardless, Plapp contributed with 78 points. Other riders such as Andrea Vendrame, Robert Donaldson and Amaury Capiot also got several top 10s in Spain, helping the Aussie team to be on top of the podium.

UAE Team Emirates - XRG is in second place with 795 points mostly thanks to Jay Vine. The Australian star won the Tour Down Under GC, won the queen stage and finished fourth in the prologue, securing 665 points all by himself. All that success also came with misfortune, as a kangaroo that invaded the road during the last stage made him crash and sustain a wrist fracture. Besides Vine, Antonio Morgado was the only other UAE rider significantly adding points, as he left the Spanish one-day races with 60 points.

Completing the podium we find Soudal - Quick-Step with 449 points. Italian talent Andrea Raccagni Noviero had very consistent performaces in Australia, finishing in sixth place. His teammate Filipo Zana was eighth, so they brought home more than 300 points combined. Paul Magnier wasn't able to beat Dylan Groenewegen in Spain, but his second place earned him 85 points nonetheless.

The other two teams within the top 5 are Uno-X Mobility and EF Education - EasyPost, and both teams did an excellent job in Australia. In the case of the Norwegian team, two riders finished in the top 10 (Andreas Kron and Anthon Charmig), same as Soudal. Regarding EF, Harry Sweeny had a breakthrough performance in his first race as a leader, finishing in the podium and securing 330 points.

Finally, going all the way down to the list, we can see that there is a team that has not started the season with the right foot. We are talking about Cofidis, as they have -15 points. The team didn't participate in the Tour Down Under, and their performance in the three Spanish races was disastrous, so they didn't get a single point. On top of that, Simon Carr received a 15 points penalty during Gran Premio Castellón - Ruta de la Cerámica for "disposing of waste outside of litter zones". Not the best start of the season for the French team, that's for sure.