Two weeks on from our last relegation watch checkup, XDS Astana’s upward momentum in the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings has stalled, with the team missing podiums in all of the recent major races. In the first month of the season, the team had nearly halved their points gap to the top 18 but have not made up as much ground this month.
Only the top 18 teams in the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings will meet the sporting requirement toward a WorldTour licence for the 2026-2028 seasons. Astana have been trailing since the beginning of the current three-year cycle, having finished the 2023 season in 20th and last year in 21st.
Since the start of the 2025 season, XDS Astana have made big gains in wiping out a 4,720-point gap to 18th-placed Cofidis, but the French team have so far held off their challenge.
From January 25 to February 25, XDS Astana gained 1,322 more points than Cofidis, largely thanks to the results of Christian Scaroni. From February 25 to March 25, the Kazakh team earned only 755 more than their French counterparts, with Scaroni injured in a crash in Strade Bianche.
However, their season average points per week still have XDS Astana closing more quickly on the top 18 than rivals Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Uno-X Mobility. XDS Astana are ranked second this season behind UAE Team Emirates-XRG while Cofidis are a distant 17th.
Bright spots for XDS Astana in recent weeks include Clément Champoussin’s and Harold Tejada’s top 10s overall in Paris-Nice, Scaroni’s second place in Trofeo Laigueglia, and a trio of riders in the top 10 at Faun-Ardéche.
The team suffered some bad luck in recent weeks, with Cees Bol and Sergio Higuita being knocked out of competition with broken bones.
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Relegation danger for Arkéa-B&B Hotels, Picnic-PostNL
The French team Arkéa-B&B Hotels have relied heavily on Kévin Vauquelin for points this season – he’s gained a third of their 1,057 points this year. Jenthe Biermans and Raul Garcia Pierna are the next-best scorers.
The team’s marquee sprinter Arnaud Démare has only scored a couple of stage podiums, and the loss of Champoussin and Vincenzo Albanese in off-season transfers has left the team weakened.
At 24th in the current season rankings and dropping from 19th to 21st in the three-year rankings, reported financial worries for the French outfit have further darkened their hopes of remaining in the WorldTour.
Picnic-PostNL have been just barely ahead of Cofidis, finishing 17th in 2023 and 16th last year. They’re way behind in 20th this year and are in danger of being passed by Cofidis in the coming weeks if both teams continue scoring the same.
A victory from Nils Eekhoff in Nokere Koerse and third in the Koksijde Classic helped stall their downward spiral, but the team will have to fight for every point to avoid being relegated as they have but 103.58 points over Cofidis as of March 25.
Promotion prospects
Lotto, currently 10th in the three-year rankings, and Israel-Premier Tech, in 14th, seem to be fairly safe prospects for regaining their WorldTour status after losing out in the first promotion/relegation cycle in 2022.
However, the Belgian team lost a slew of strong riders including Victor Campenaerts, Maxim van Gils and Florian Vermeersch in the transfer season. Worse, their star rider Arnaud De Lie has struggled since taking the team’s only 2025 win so far at Etoile de Bessèges in January.
They’re way down in 24th place in the 2025 rankings, and while they have a long way to fall to miss out on the WorldTour, a couple of disastrous Grand Tours could hurt. However, they’d have to lose almost 8,000 points relative to Cofidis over the next seven months to drop out of the top 18.
Israel-Premier Tech are in a stronger position, having kept most of their core team in the transfers. They’re sitting in 16th for the current season and 14th in the three-year rankings with a buffer of almost 3,500 points over Cofidis.
As of the March 25 rankings, Uno-X Mobility are ahead of XDS Astana and Arkéa-B&B Hotels in the three-year rankings, having closed more of the gap to Cofidis. They sit in 19th with a gap of 2,350 points to the French team.
Magnus Cort’s sixth places in Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo along with Tobias Halland Johannessen’s 11th place in GC and a stage win by Fredrik Dversnes in Tirreno-Adriatico are the most recent boosts to the team’s fortunes.
Unfortunately for newcomers Tudor Pro Cycling and Q36.5, their relatively weak totals over the 2023 and 2024 seasons will most likely make it impossible for either to reach the WorldTour in 2026. Tudor have 9,487 points to make up and Q36.5 a whopping 11,228.
Any rider except Tadej Pogačar, who scored 11,655 points last year between his Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, three Classic and World Championship victories, would struggle to lift either team to the WorldTour.
