Do rankings and points matter in cycling? Demonstrably not as the points tables are hard to find, they’re 70 pages into a 394 page PDF linked to on the regulations page of the UCI website.
But they do matter for this year’s promotion and relegation race. So here are the tables showing how many UCI points are available in each road race. It’s not a gripping read but at least here they’re all on one page and upcoming pieces about points and rankings can link back to this resource.
The table below is for the men’s World Tour races, if it’s a stage race then it’s for the final overall classification. You can see the overall win in the Tour de France is the single biggest points haul in the sport. Note the subtle differences, the Tour Down Under is more valuable that winning Itzulia Basque Country… according to the rankings:
Next comes the points per stage in the World Tour stage races, as you can see a Tour de France stage is 210 points and points in the grand tours go down to 15th each day and 10th for the other stage races.
Next you can see points on offer for final place in the secondary competitions of a grand tour, namely the mountains and points competition, as you can see winning points or mountains jersey is worth as much as a stage win. And for others it’s worth finishing second or third in the competition just for the points.
Next comes a daily award for leading a World Tour stage race, the real prize is the publicity and opportunity but the points are here to signal it counts too and with the overall win and stage wins it helps compound things further:
Now comes arguably the most important table here for the promotion/relegation contest because it’s for races outside the World Tour and this is where teams hunting points can find rewards thanks to the breadth of the calendar. Managers of teams trying to avoid relegation know the table below by heart. Here winning a stage race overall or winning a one day brings the same points haul, which makes one day races very important. The season-opening Challenge Majorca races are a good case study, all Class 1 one day events where the winner banks 125 points each day, but if it was a stage race only the final overall would bring this many points:
The next two tables below shows the points on offer for stages in non-World Tour races and the daily points for leading the race too:
Below are the national championships, split into A and B groups, where A is defined as a nation that started at least one rider in the previous Men’s Elite world championship road race. These points matter because often when we look at the teams with few wins and placings in the year, several of their best results can be from national championships in smaller nations, the kind with only a few pros. Sometimes we’ve seen big name riders skip their national championships but smaller teams hunting points ought be paying business class returns for their riders to go and grab the jersey and points:
Now comes the Continental Championships, think the European championships for the best example. If these championships have a team time trial and/or a mixed relay time trial event, the small table further below also applies:
Now for the Worlds and Olympics, big events but the UCI is keen to big them up even more and they are the most lucrative one day races on the calendar in terms of points, 100 more than a Monument classic:
For the last of the tables, here’s the mixed relay time trial at the worlds which the UCI is keen on promoting, it’s 300 points but this is divided by the three men, so 100 points each (of course the women get 100 each too):
How to forfeit points
Riders can lose points too. The UCI rules include penalties for bad behaviour and some come with points deductions. They concern cheating like taking short-cuts, to using sidewalks, ignoring level-crossing red lights, littering and other misdemeanours, right down to failing to sign on for the day’s racing or show up for the post-race press conference if invited. Any team manager sweating about winning points needs to also encourage riders not to lose them. As you can see from the Vuelta bulletin above, Nairo Quintana dropping litter cost Movistar 25 points, these can quickly add up and negate results.