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Whereas the boys’s peloton have been by way of a promotion/relegation cycle already, the women’s teams will face the first round of points-based changes on the finish of the 2023 season.
The two-tier team system for women continues to be a comparatively new idea, having been launched by the UCI for the primary time in 2020. That 12 months, top-tier groups have been set aside from the remainder primarily based on a sequence of economic and different necessities, together with a guaranteed minimum salary for riders. In 2020, eight groups have been granted WorldTour licences earlier than a ninth workforce, Boels Dolmans (now SD Worx) joined in 2021.
For 2022, with WorldTeam standing that means assured entry to the newly-restored Tour de France Femmes, the variety of WorldTour groups jumped to 14 – one lower than the accessible 15 licences. These licences have been granted on a two-year foundation and are set to run out on the finish of 2023.
From the tip of this 12 months, licences might be rewarded on the premise of rating (so long as those that can apply qualify for the opposite WorldTeam necessities) with the primary 15 groups to qualify within the 2022-23 promotion/relegation cycle in a position to apply for a 2024-25 WorldTeam licence. The rating is made up of the collective factors of the very best eight riders of 2022 and the very best eight riders of 2023.
Initially of the season, present WorldTeam licence holders Human Powered Well being, Uno-X and Israel Premier Tech Roland have been within the relegation hazard zone as they dropped under the first-15 ranked groups. In the meantime, three Continental stage groups: Ceratizit-WNT, AG Insurance coverage Soudal-Quickstep and LifePlus Wahoo, ranked greater, placing themselves ready to achieve WorldTeam standing for 2024-25. Dutch growth squad Parkhotel Valkenburg additionally characteristic however haven’t expressed a need to achieve WorldTeam standing.
Since then, each Uno-X and Israel Premier Tech Roland have pulled forward of LifePlus Wahoo and are at the moment ranked fifteenth and sixteenth respectively. Israel Premier Tech have a 147-point deficit on fifteenth, whereas Human Powered Well being are at the moment in nineteenth place and have nearly 1,000 factors to make up on Uno-X within the two-year rankings and dealing with relegation.
The 2 WorldTeams on the cusp might be heartened by the information that Liv Racing Teqfind and Jayco-AlUla are combining forces from 2024 onwards, making one extra WorldTour spot accessible. Elsewhere, there’s uncertainty round present WorldTeam EF Schooling-TIBCO-SVB who, after the collapse of one of their primary sponsors, Silicon Valley Financial institution and with TIBCO not renewing sponsorship, may fold on the finish of the season. EF-EasyPost are starting a women’s squad from 2024 however it’s unclear if it should apply to be a WorldTour workforce. However, any workforce in direction of the underside of the relegation zone might be trying to accumulate as many factors as potential to make sure their security.
So how will the struggle to remain throughout the top-15 have an effect on the racing for the Tour de France Femmes and the remainder of the season?
Rank | Staff | Division | 2022 | 2023 | 2022-2023 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | SD Worx | WWT | 11629.01 | 12823.58 | 24452.59 |
2 | Lidl-Trek | WWT | 11277.65 | 8035.87 | 19313.52 |
3 | Staff dsm-firmenich | WWT | 10671.33 | 4745.7 | 15417.03 |
4 | Movistar Staff | WWT | 9378.98 | 5903.28 | 15282.26 |
5 | FDJ-SUEZ | WWT | 9838.33 | 5396.71 | 15235.04 |
6 | Canyon-Sram | WWT | 7111.67 | 6462.55 | 13574.22 |
7 | UAE Staff ADQ | WWT | 6027 | 5857.9 | 11884.9 |
8 | Jumbo-Visma | WWT | 4815.36 | 3483.84 | 8299.2 |
9 | Jayco-AlUla | WWT | 5298.69 | 2208.04 | 7506.73 |
10 | EF Schooling-Tibco-SVB | WWT | 3016.01 | 2837 | 5853.01 |
11 | Fenix-Deceuninck | CONT | 2884.33 | 2651 | 5535.33 |
12 | Ceratizit-WNT | CONT | 2401.33 | 2782 | 5183.33 |
13 | Liv Racing TeqFind | WWT | 2575 | 1930.16 | 4505.16 |
14 | AG Insurance coverage-Soudal Quickstep | WWT | 1360 | 3116 | 4476 |
15 | Uno-X | WWT | 995.66 | 2862 | 3857.66 |
16 | Israel Premier Tech Roland | WWT | 1380.8 | 2330 | 3710.8 |
17 | Lifeplus Wahoo | CONT | 2327 | 823 | 3150 |
18 | Parkhotel Valkenburg | CONT | 2157 | 764.68 | 2921.68 |
20 | Human Powered Well being | WWT | 914 | 1956 | 2870 |
21 | Cofidis | WWT | 860 | 1689 | 2549 |
Consistency is essential
In distinction to the boys’s re-structured factors system, for girls’s groups, having a GC contender has the potential to be extra useful than stage looking. On the Tour de France Femmes – and any Girls’s WorldTour stage race for that matter – a GC win yields 400 UCI factors happening to 68 factors for tenth. If these groups on the cusp of relegation can focus their efforts on a constant GC chief then they’ll come away with a clutch of useful factors.
Take Israel Premier Tech Roland for instance, the workforce are at the moment in sixteenth place within the rating on 3710.8 factors, 147 factors behind their rivals, Uno-X. Their Tour GC hopes lie with both Tamara Dronova or Claire Steels who’re each gifted climbers and their possibilities of a GC top-10 are good. In the meantime, Uno-X have 29-year-old climber Anouska Koster who, whereas gifted, doubtlessly doesn’t have the workforce to again her up and has struggled to interrupt into the top-10 on GC in different stage races.
Elsewhere, AG Insurance coverage Soudal-Quickstep, who’re already 618.34 factors forward of Uno-X, must also have a protected guess for GC with Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, flanked by Belgian expertise Justine Ghekiere. LifePlus Wahoo have additionally introduced on a powerful climber within the type of Natalie Grinczer who has joined the workforce from Stade Rochelais Charente-Maritime to be able to enhance their Tour de France probabilities.
With every stage win yielding 50 UCI factors, down to only six factors for tenth place, it’s nonetheless value groups aiming for prime stage placings – which a GC place will demand on the climbing phases anyway – nonetheless the factors haul for stage spots is nowhere close to as useful.
It’s not all concerning the Tour
The Tour is not at all one of the best ways for groups to collect very important factors. Once more in contrast to the revised males’s factors system, Tour de France Femmes positions don’t carry extra UCI factors than different races. The UCI factors on provide at Girls’s WorldTour races are constant throughout the board that means that on the Tour, the place the possibilities of a excessive GC place or stage win are slim for Girls’s WorldTour groups with smaller budgets, is definitely much less more likely to yield factors for them.
As a substitute, we may see the groups within the hazard zone going all-in for races such because the Tour of Scandinavia, which, coming simply three weeks after the Tour and ten days after the World Championships street race, is unlikely to have as robust of a subject. Certainly, the rest of the season post-Tour de France Femmes could be ripe territory in relation to selecting up factors, that is significantly true of the Tour of Chongming Island and Tour of Guangxi as most of the WorldTeams who’re protected from relegation might be unlikely to make the journey.
Away from WorldTour racing, although, there are many factors on provide at lower-level occasions. A UCI 1.1 win yields 125 factors, whereas a 1.Professional race comparable to Giro dell’Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite, which comes on the finish of September, brings 200 factors for first place.
Human Powered Well being have opted to focus on lower-ranked races of their bid for factors this season. The WorldTeam didn’t race a Girls’s WorldTour race between Liège-Bastogne-Liège on the twenty third April and the beginning of the Giro Donne on the thirtieth June. In that point they raced a sequence of .1 and .2 races together with the Antwerp Port Epic the place Audrey Cordon Ragot’s third place netted the workforce 70 factors.
Cash issues
Groups with budgets to purchase probably the most adorned riders will at all times come out on prime in a system comparable to this. With Demi Vollering alone, SD Worx have amassed 4889 factors – greater than the present complete factors of the entire workforce of Uno-X, Israel Premier Tech Roland and Human Powered Well being.
The highest-five ranked riders within the UCI particular person rating every have greater than 2,800 factors to their names and, unsurprisingly, 4 of these race for Staff SD Worx, who, as a workforce, have nearly ten occasions the factors from the 2022-23 season of Human Powered Well being.
Regardless of struggling with numerous rider accidents and sicknesses in addition to having Ellen van Dijk on maternity depart, Lidl-Trek are second within the present rating largely all the way down to the evergreen Elisa Longo Borghini. With the finances to carry on shiny younger issues like Gaia Realini and Shirin van Anrooij the workforce are additionally in a position to safe their future.
This additionally signifies that these higher-ranked high-budget groups are in a position to run twin programmes to achieve much more factors or have the posh of opting out of races to relaxation their riders if vital. Because of this the riders are in a position to run a extra focused programme which in flip is more likely to carry extra success. Conversely, these groups who’re on the hunt for as many factors as potential might put on out their roster while selecting the bones of the .1 and .2 races.
No room for progress
The system additionally favours groups who have been already effectively established within the WorldTour upon its inception. Uno-X, for instance, are solely of their second season as a workforce, however with the struggle to remain within the WorldTour there isn’t a room for rising pains. Likewise, Israel Premier Tech Roland are solely of their second season as a WorldTeam and discover themselves within the hazard zone.
It’s effectively documented that the ladies’s peloton lacks depth and is in want of higher growth pathways and professionalism. Nonetheless this points-based relegation system discourages groups on the decrease finish from taking over growing riders who might not be assured outcomes immediately. Whereas these on the prime can afford to supply alternatives to their younger or growing riders while additionally guaranteeing factors and success with their established leaders.
With the cream rising to the highest of the WorldTeam rankings the unfold of expertise all through the groups is top-heavy, that means that groups who lack the finances or the pull to draw star riders will at all times miss out.
The answer to it is a three-tier system like we see within the males’s, the place groups with an providing above Continental stage however slightly below WorldTeam standing can sit.
Typically, the 2022-23 promotion/relegation cycle is unlikely to yield too many surprises. If groups comparable to Ceratizit-WNT and AG Insurance coverage apply for WorldTeam licences as anticipated then they are going to be granted that standing, whereas Uno-X, Israel Premier Tech Roland, LifePlus Wahoo and Human Powered Well being struggle for the remaining two spots. Ought to the UCI change the best way the factors are weighted, as they’ve for the boys’s races, then the following cycle of licences may have a extra fascinating final result in relation to the the best way girls’s racing performs out.
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