UCI Rankings Team Update | UAE solidify lead, Red Bull pull away from Visma, and Picnic's downfall is picking up speed

The spring Classics season is close to the finish. The past week delivered several top-tier races, led by the Amstel Gold Race, opening the Ardennes triptych that wraps up this week. The UCI WorldTour Ranking shifted after the Dutch race, alongside events such as Brabantse Pijl, O Gran Camiño, Ronde van Limburg, and the Tour of Hainan.

As has been the case since the start of this season, UAE Team Emirates - XRG continues to rule at the top with 11,084.4 points. The standouts for the Emirati squad this week were Benoit Cosnefroy, third at both the Amstel Gold Race (325 points) and Brabantse Pijl (140 points), and Adam Yates, winner of the overall at O Gran Camiño, plus a stage (135 points).

Chasing behind is Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe who have surpassed the 8,000 point mark this week and pulled away from Visma | Lease a Bike, still third. The German team enjoyed a big week with Remco Evenepoel’s marquee triumph at the Amstel Gold Race (500 UCI points). Decathlon CMA CGM remains fourth with a more modest week.

Away from the main spectacle, XDS Astana Team banked big time at the Tour of Hainan. Thomas Silva won general classification and two stages (305 points), supported by Nicolas Vinokurov in sixth (80 points), it allows the team to look away from mediocre sprint performances.

In the rest of the Top 10, Alpecin-Premier Tech (6th) overtook Bahrain Victorious (7th) thanks to unlikely Amstel Gold Race hero Emiel Verstrynge in fifth place (225 points). Jayco AlUla holds eighth for another week. Soudal - Quick-Step stays ninth. Lidl-Trek climb two places into the Top 10, above all thanks to Mattias Skjelmose’s second place at the Amstel Gold Race.

The battle at the edge of WorldTour saw no major shifts (besides Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team getting a little breathier on Unibet Rose Rockets after Quinten Hermans' Brabantse Pijl podium) this week. Cofidis holds a 700-point lead among ProTeams, with Q36.5, Unibet and Tudor within 300 points.

Further down the list is the interesting battle for a top-30 spot, necessary to qualify for a Grand Tour invitation. Novo Nordisk, Flanders-Baloise, and Modern Pro Adventure are probably expected far outside the battle (despite amazing performances of Tom Crabbe and Byron Munton for the latter two teams).

However, Italian teams are also in a pickle. Currently, only Polti VisitMalta sits comfortably within the top-30. Solution Tech NIPPO Rali - 31st on the 2025 ranking - are barely hanging on to a 30th spot, 18 points ahead of continental Li Ning Star. However, the Chinese team will have scored notable points at Uzbekistan's Tour of Fergana (2.2), bridging this gap for the moment, as another continental team, Terengganu Cycling Team, is within 20 points of Solution Tech.

The situation is even more dismal at Bardiani CSF 7 Saber and MBH Bank CSB Telecom Fort, 35th and 36th, respectively. Bardiani are invited for this year's Giro d'Italia, where they'll be able to score a significant amount of points, but both teams need to get up to speed sooner rather than later.

Contrary to the Italian teams' problems, Spanish lineups are doing rather commendably currently: Burgos is 23rd, Caja Rural 24th, Kern Pharma 27th, and Euskaltel - left out of Grand Tour talks for 2026 - 28th. All above 1,000 UCI points already in the second half of April.

And even more interestingly, all four Spanish ProTeams rank above WorldTour Picnic PostNL. The Dutch team is in a tangible crisis. Their only reliable performer in 2026, Pavel Bittner, is single-handedly responsible for almost half of Picnic's points (485 out of 1,016). The second-best scorer is neo-pro Frits Biesterbos with 104 points.

It's not that Picnic doesn't have any capable scorers at all; however, key riders were dealing with injuries and illness throughout most of the spring. Therefore, stars Max Poole, Casper van Uden, Fabio Jakobsen, John Degenkolb, and Warren Barguil have so far combined for 75 UCI points. And that's largely thanks to Degenkolb's 60.