Relegation watch – How the points race will affect the Tour de France Femmes

While the men’s peloton have been through a promotion/relegation cycle already, the women’s teams will face the first round of points-based changes at the end of the 2023 season.

 The two-tier team system for women is still a relatively new concept, having been introduced by the UCI for the first time in 2020. That year, top-tier teams were set apart from the rest based on a series of financial and other requirements, including a guaranteed minimum salary for riders. In 2020, eight teams were granted WorldTour licences before a ninth team, Boels Dolmans (now SD Worx) joined in 2021.

For 2022, with WorldTeam status meaning guaranteed entry to the newly-restored Tour de France Femmes, the number of WorldTour teams jumped to fourteen – one less than the available 15 licences. Those licences were granted on a two-year basis and are set to expire at the end of 2023.

From the end of this year, licences will be rewarded on the basis of ranking (as long as those who can apply qualify for the other WorldTeam requirements) with the first 15 teams to qualify in the 2022-23 promotion/relegation cycle able to apply for a 2024-25 WorldTeam licence. The ranking is made up of the collective points of the best eight riders of 2022 and the best eight riders of 2023.

At the start of the season, current WorldTeam licence holders Human Powered Health, Uno-X and Israel Premier Tech Roland were in the relegation danger zone as they dropped below the first-15 ranked teams. Meanwhile, three Continental level teams: Ceratizit-WNT, AG Insurance Soudal-Quickstep and LifePlus Wahoo, ranked higher, putting themselves in a position to gain WorldTeam status for 2024-25. Dutch development squad Parkhotel Valkenburg also feature but have not expressed a desire to gain WorldTeam status.

Since then, both Uno-X and Israel Premier Tech Roland have pulled ahead of LifePlus Wahoo and are currently ranked 15th and 16th respectively. Israel Premier Tech have a 147-point deficit on 15th, while Human Powered Health are currently in 19th place and have almost 1,000 points to make up on Uno-X in the two-year rankings and facing relegation.

The two WorldTeams on the cusp will be heartened by the news that Liv Racing Teqfind and Jayco-AlUla are combining forces from 2024 onwards, making one additional WorldTour spot available. Elsewhere, there is uncertainty around current WorldTeam EF Education-TIBCO-SVB who, after the collapse of one of their primary sponsors, Silicon Valley Bank and with TIBCO not renewing sponsorship, could fold at the end of the season. EF-EasyPost are starting a women’s squad from 2024 but it is unclear if it will apply to be a WorldTour team. Nevertheless, any team towards the bottom of the relegation zone will be looking to collect as many points as possible to ensure their safety.

So how will the fight to stay within the top-15 affect the racing for the Tour de France Femmes and the rest of the season?

Consistency is key

In contrast to the men’s re-structured points system, for women’s teams, having a GC contender has the potential to be more valuable than stage hunting. At the Tour de France Femmes – and any Women’s WorldTour stage race for that matter – a GC win yields 400 UCI points going down to 68 points for 10th. If those teams on the cusp of relegation can focus their efforts on a consistent GC leader then they can come away with a clutch of valuable points.

Take Israel Premier Tech Roland for example, the team are currently in 16th place in the ranking on 3710.8 points, 147 points behind their rivals, Uno-X. Their Tour GC hopes lie with either Tamara Dronova or Claire Steels who are both talented climbers and their chances of a GC top-10 are good. Meanwhile, Uno-X have 29-year-old climber Anouska Koster who, while talented, potentially doesn’t have the team to back her up and has struggled to break into the top-10 on GC in other stage races.

Elsewhere, AG Insurance Soudal-Quickstep, who are already 618.34 points ahead of Uno-X, should also have a safe bet for GC with Ashleigh Moolman Pasio, flanked by Belgian talent Justine Ghekiere. LifePlus Wahoo have also brought on a strong climber in the form of Natalie Grinczer who has joined the team from Stade Rochelais Charente-Maritime in order to boost their Tour de France chances.

With each stage win yielding 50 UCI points, down to just six points for 10th place, it is still worth teams aiming for high stage placings – which a GC position will demand on the climbing stages anyway – however the points haul for stage spots is nowhere near as valuable.

It’s not all about the Tour

The Tour is by no means the best way for teams to gather vital points. Again unlike the revised men’s points system, Tour de France Femmes positions do not carry more UCI points than other races. The UCI points on offer at Women’s WorldTour races are consistent across the board meaning that at the Tour, where the chances of a high GC place or stage win are slim for Women's WorldTour teams with smaller budgets, is actually less likely to yield points for them.

Instead, we could see the teams in the danger zone going all-in for races such as the Tour of Scandinavia, which, coming just three weeks after the Tour and ten days after the World Championships road race, is unlikely to have as strong of a field. Indeed, the remainder of the season post-Tour de France Femmes can be ripe territory when it comes to picking up points, this is particularly true of the Tour of Chongming Island and Tour of Guangxi as many of the WorldTeams who are safe from relegation will be unlikely to make the trip.

Away from WorldTour racing, though, there are plenty of points on offer at lower-level events. A UCI 1.1 win yields 125 points, while a 1.Pro race such as Giro dell'Emilia Internazionale Donne Elite, which comes at the end of September, brings 200 points for first place.

Human Powered Health have opted to target lower-ranked races in their bid for points this season. The WorldTeam did not race a Women’s WorldTour race between Liège-Bastogne-Liège on the 23rd April and the start of the Giro Donne on the 30th June. In that time they raced a series of .1 and .2 races including the Antwerp Port Epic where Audrey Cordon Ragot’s third place netted the team 70 points.

Money matters

Teams with budgets to buy the most decorated riders will always come out on top in a system such as this. With Demi Vollering alone, SD Worx have amassed 4889 points – more than the current total points of the whole team of Uno-X, Israel Premier Tech Roland and Human Powered Health.

The top-five ranked riders in the UCI individual ranking each have more than 2,800 points to their names and, unsurprisingly, four of those race for Team SD Worx, who, as a team, have almost ten times the points from the 2022-23 season of Human Powered Health.

Despite suffering with a number of rider injuries and illnesses as well as having Ellen van Dijk on maternity leave, Lidl-Trek are second in the current ranking largely down to the evergreen Elisa Longo Borghini. With the budget to bring on bright young things like Gaia Realini and Shirin van Anrooij the team are also able to secure their future.

This also means that these higher-ranked high-budget teams are able to run dual programmes to gain even more points or have the luxury of opting out of races to rest their riders if necessary. This means that the riders are able to run a more targeted programme which in turn is likely to bring more success. Conversely, those teams who are on the hunt for as many points as possible may wear out their roster whilst picking the bones of the .1 and .2 races.

No room for growth

The system also favours teams who were already well established in the WorldTour upon its inception. Uno-X, for example, are only in their second season as a team, but with the fight to stay in the WorldTour there is no room for growing pains. Likewise, Israel Premier Tech Roland are only in their second season as a WorldTeam and find themselves in the danger zone.

It is well documented that the women’s peloton lacks depth and is in need of better development pathways and professionalism. However this points-based relegation system discourages teams at the lower end from taking on developing riders who may not be guaranteed results straight away. While those at the top can afford to offer opportunities to their young or developing riders whilst also guaranteeing points and success with their established leaders.

With the cream rising to the top of the WorldTeam rankings the spread of talent throughout the teams is top-heavy, meaning that teams who lack the budget or the pull to attract star riders will always miss out.

The solution to this is a three-tier system like we see in the men’s, where teams with an offering above Continental level but just below WorldTeam status can sit.

In general, the 2022-23 promotion/relegation cycle is unlikely to yield too many surprises. If teams such as Ceratizit-WNT and AG Insurance apply for WorldTeam licences as expected then they will be granted that status, while Uno-X, Israel Premier Tech Roland, LifePlus Wahoo and Human Powered Health fight for the remaining two spots. Should the UCI change the way the points are weighted, as they have for the men’s races, then the next cycle of licences could have a more interesting outcome when it comes to the the way women’s racing plays out.