{"id":213967,"date":"2025-10-20T20:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/213967\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T20:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T20:55:11","slug":"the-inner-ring-world-tour-promotion-and-relegation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/213967\/","title":{"rendered":"The Inner Ring | World Tour Promotion and Relegation"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The official UCI rankings for 2026 are out<\/a> and with them here are the final promotion and relegation standings. Uno-X, Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 and Israel-PremierTech should move up to the World Tour while Cofidis get relegated\u2026 but it\u2019s not yet as simple as that.<\/p>\n

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The red line in the chart above marks 18th place, those teams above are eligible for the World Tour in the next three year cycle across 2026-2028 while those below are not. It\u2019s not the subject of the piece but you can see UAE with over 40,000 points this season alone, only the next six teams after them scored as much across three seasons.<\/p>\n

Look closer at the chart above and you can see how promotion candidates Lotto made it thanks to a strong haul in previous years when they\u2019ve had a dire season. And they\u2019re merging with Intermarch\u00e9 which fared even worse this year.<\/p>\n

Uno-X pip Cofidis for the last place above the red line, just 397 points between them over three seasons.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ark\u00e9a-B&B Hotels get relegated too. But that\u2019s a footnote given the team won\u2019t exist next year. The team did well to qualify for the World Tour by scoring beaucoup points across the 2020-2022 seasons but then seemed like the proverbial dog that chases cars, it did not know what to do once it caught a World Tour licence. It only had one World Tour win in its three years at the top although some other results here and there to be proud of.<\/p>\n

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This chart shows the relegation contest across the season. Two things stand out: first is how far back XDS-Astana started and how they\u2019ve kept climbing all season; the second is the red line of Cofidis and how it\u2019s been relatively flat.<\/p>\n

At the end of May Cofidis were just ahead of XDS-Astana, Picnic-PostNL and well ahead Uno-X but the team stalled in the Tour and Vuelta and other summer races. Picnic-PostNL kept looking like they had the quality to stay up and Oscar Onley\u2019s summer saved them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so simple, part I
There can be a final count and in previous years some teams have contacted the UCI to get errors fixed and ensure missing points are counted. But the gaps involved are too big here. Plus having checked the scores for Cofidis there\u2019s no chance of a last minute appeal. Some results websites list Stanis\u0142aw Anio\u0142kowski with 641 points while the UCI put him on 626. But there\u2019s no scandal, it\u2019s because you can compute 641 points from his race results but he also got a 15 point penalty from the commissaires which hasn\u2019t been logged.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not so simple, part II
The rankings above illustrate the \u201csporting criteria\u201d as to whether a team is eligible for the World Tour or not. But this is one criterion and it only applies after the admin, financial, organisation and ethical criteria have been met. This review process is underway now and lasts around a month.<\/p>\n

So we can assume that Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 works as a merger but it\u2019s up to the UCI and its auditors to review the legality and the funding in place for the team. If all is good then they should get back into the World Tour, let\u2019s hope. But today it\u2019s conditional.<\/p>\n

Likewise Israel-PremierTech has scored plenty of points but it\u2019s on them to show the UCI a valid project for 2026 given the team is trying to change identity and its chief backer Sylvan Adams is going to step away from the team, at least in terms of speaking for the team but if he decides to reduce the funding this could be significant. There\u2019s no sign to say this is going to happen, so again we ought to assume the team is promoted but there are questions to answer. That\u2019s what the licence process is for.<\/p>\n

The same goes for all the other World Tour teams, we should assume that they get approved for next season that\u2019s the whole point of the annual review happening in the background now. For example if Deceuninck is stepping back as a title sponsor, does Alpecin have the budget given there\u2019s no named replacement, and so on.<\/p>\n

All this means we\u2019re assuming 18 WorldTeams for 2026 and it\u2019s a fair scenario but it\u2019s not yet certain. A nasty surprise for one team and maybe Cofidis stays in the the World Tour? They\u2019ve actually applied for a World Tour licence, it\u2019s prudent to do this. It\u2019s one reason why the promotion and relegation battle in pro cycling is probably for insiders as it\u2019s not as clear cut as the arithmetic of a league table in football or basketball.<\/p>\n

Three year cycle, annual review
While the licence attribution is for the next three seasons, there is always an annual review. This matters for Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 as Belgium has passed a law banning gambling advertising<\/a> in all forms including lotteries, scratchcards etc. There\u2019s been an exemption for shirt sponsorship until the end of 2027 which has allowed Lotto to continue. 2028 might seem far away but it will be felt soon, if the team approaches a rider next spring with a two year contract, ie 2027+2028 they and their agent will want to know what the team will do if its prime backer is soon banned from sponsoring the team.<\/p>\n

Automatic invites
Assuming there are 18 World Tour teams for 2026 then the top-3 teams from the 2025 rankings that aren\u2019t in the World Tour qualify for a wildcard next year. Tudor Pro Cycling is well clear here with Q36.5 and Cofidis next. They\u2019ll all welcome this security.<\/p>\n

Wildcards
There are two places left for the grand tours. New for 2026 is that a team must be among the top-30 teams on the previous season\u2019s rankings. So among the candidates for a grand tour start Solution Tech-Vini Fantini are not eligible for the Giro d\u2019Italia as they\u2019re in 31st place, pipped by VF Bardiani in 30th place. Similarly Euskaltel-Euskadi are in 34th place and so can\u2019t hope for a Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a invite either.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Women\u2019s World Tour
There\u2019s been less of a contest here for the 2024-2025 two year cycle to be in the top-15 teams. EF-Oatly and VolkerWessels are eligible at the expense of Ceratizit and Roland-Le D\u00e9voluy which are stopping. But only the US team is applying to join the World Tour, the Dutch team will instead qualify for automatic invitations VolkerWessels alongside Laboral Kutxa-Euskadi as the two best teams outside of the Women\u2019s World Tour.<\/p>\n

Conclusion
XDS-Astana did it against the odds but who saw Uno-X getting promoted this time last year? Still an admin asterisk awaits, one conclusion is it is hard to be conclusive today. The official rankings are out today and in terms of the count the merging Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 team, Israel-PremierTech and Uno-X are eligible for promotion to the World Tour while Cofidis are relegated and Ark\u00e9a-B&B stop. It\u2019s the most probable scenario but not yet certain as in the background the UCI is reviewing each team\u2019s viability.<\/p>\n

Another three year cycle starts now across the 2026, 2027 and 2028 seasons for the men\u2019s and women\u2019s teams alike.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The official UCI rankings for 2026 are out and with them here are the final promotion and relegation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-213967","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}