The results that Tadej Pogačar accomplished in 2024, with victories in the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and World Championships, were so far and above all others in the pro peloton that the Slovenian earned almost twice the number of UCI points as his nearest rival, Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quickstep), the October 14 rankings showed.
The UCI World Rankings for individuals are calculated on a rolling 12-month window. As the season draws to a close this week, Pogačar ends his 160th week as the world's number 1 rider, racking up 11,655 points compared to Evenepoel's 6,073 points.
Pogačar scored 1,300 for his Tour de France overall win, 1,100 for the Giro d'Italia GC, 900 for winning the world title, 210 for each of his six Tour stages and 180 for each of his Giro stages.
He also scored 800 points each for winning Il Lombardia and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 520 for his third place in Milan-San Remo, 500 for winning the GP de Montréal and 400 for winning Strade Bianche, plus a slew of other points for minor placings and classifications.
Pogačar's massive tally of points is in part due to the UCI's 2023 revamp of the points structure, which awarded relatively fewer points for one-day races and placed more emphasis on the Grand Tours, but it is more than double the best total for a year before the new rules - set by Pogačar in 2021 when he scored 5,363 points.
Evenepoel also had an exceptional season, with two Olympic gold medals, his world title in the time trial, and his podiums in the Tour de France, Paris-Nice and Il Lombardia, among other results contributing to his tally.
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) finished his season in third place in the individual rankings with 4,790 points.
2024 Team Rankings
Pogačar's team has yet to close out the season, fielding riders at the last three races of the season in the Tour of Guangxi, Giro del Veneto and Veneto Classic. There is no chance of the team ceding the number 1 slot in the team rankings, however, as they have a lead of more than 16,000 points over Visma-Lease a Bike. Soudal-Quickstep climbed to third, getting ahead of Lidl-Trek.
UAE Team Emirates set a record, according to the team, of 76 wins by 20 different riders for the 2024 season - the most since 2000 when Mapei-Quickstep won 72 races with 23 different riders.
The 2024 Team Rankings determine which ProTeams will earn automatic invitations to the WorldTour events. Lotto Dstny and Israel-Premier Tech have a lock on the top two places for ProTeams which will earn them automatic wildcard invitations to all of the WorldTour races in 2025.
Uno-X Mobility, as the third-best ProTeam, are set to earn automatic invitations to the WorldTour one-day events in 2025.
WorldTour Relegation rankings
With the 2024 season drawing to a close, the WorldTour futures of Astana Qazaqstan and Arkéa-B&B Hotels are still bleak. The UCI rules for the WorldTour include 'sporting criteria' where every three years, teams must be in the top 18 of the combined three-year rankings to qualify for a WorldTour licence. The current period ends at the end of the 2025 season.
Two years in, Astana are 21st in the three-year rankings and Arkéa-B&B Hotels is 19th. Both teams are lagging well behind Cofidis, who are in 18th - Arkéa trail by 2,366 points while Astana are a much more distant 4,782 points down.
Astana have fallen a long way since the last three-year cycle. They were seventh and eighth in 2020 and 2021, respectively, but then dropped to 13th at the end of the 2020-2022 period. With the retirement of Vincenzo Nibali and the loss of sponsor Premier Tech after 2021, the team faced a major rebuilding period.
They've been at the bottom of the rankings for WorldTeams for the past two years and, while they've signed a few key riders in Sergio Higuita, Diego Ulissi and Wout Poels, they face a massive uphill battle to remain in the WorldTour.
Arkéa-B&B Hotels, in comparison, have been steadily in the relegation zone, just barely sneaking into the WorldTour thanks to an ingenious strategy of eschewing WorldTour races to gain points at smaller events. The change in the UCI points structure hasn't benefited the French team, however, and they have lagged in 19th ever since.
There is still a chance that Cofidis could continue their downward trajectory and drop beneath Arkéa - they were in serious danger of being demoted in 2021 but turned around their performances in 2022 to salvage their place in the WorldTour. Since then, they've dropped from 15th to 18th in the cumulative rankings and have lost ground to Team DSM-Firmenich-Postnl.
Lotto Dstny, now in 9th, and Israel-Premier Tech in 14th in the three-year rankings appear certain to return to the WorldTour in 2026 after being relegated in 2022. Uno-X Mobility don't appear to have enough momentum to overtake any of the teams in the top 18 and their WorldTour ambitions may have to wait until 2029.
