Women's WorldTour relegation battle: Points, rankings, and the teams in danger

The Women's WorldTour has entered the next phase of restructuring that will see WorldTeams and Continental Teams in a battle for points that will decide the 15 WorldTour teams in 2024. Like for the men's WorldTour teams in 2022, the 2023 season will become a battle for points and so Women's WorldTour survival.

The combined points accumulated across the 2022 and 2023 seasons will be put toward the two-year system for the UCI World Ranking, which will play a key role in determining which teams are either promoted, relegated or remain among the top tier of Women's WorldTeams.

Three current WorldTour teams have found themselves in a relegation danger zone, with Israel Premier Tech-Roland in 18th, Uno-X Pro Cycling in 24th and Human Powered Health in 27th based on the UCI World Ranking at the end of the 2022 season. 

Don't count them out, however, because, with revamped rosters and a targeted points-chasing strategy, these teams have everything to play for in 2023 as they battle to keep their WorldTeam licences.

The sport governing body introduced the Women's WorldTour in 2016, which replaced for former one-day World Cup series, and created a two-tier team structure as part of the women's professional racing reforms in 2020.

The team restructuring began with the elevation of eight teams to the top tier called WorldTeams in 2020, and the number of top-level teams increased to nine in 2021, 14 in 2022, reaching 15 teams for 2023.

How did these teams acquire WorldTeam licences? 

During the application and registration process, each team had to meet four non-sporting requirements to be granted a WorldTeam licence: administrative, ethical, organizational and financial.

The heightened financial criteria include, but are not limited to, a team's ability to pay its riders a minimum salary, which the UCI introduced for Women's WorldTeams in 2020. 

Currently, riders contracted with a top-tier team earn a minimum salary of €32,102 (employed) / €52,647 (self-employed) in 2023, and that is set to increase to €35,000 (employed) / €57,400 (self-employed) in 2024, and again to €38,000 (employed) / €62,320 (self-employed) in 2025.  

The salary structure now also includes a neo-pro minimum salary scale.

No team is guaranteed to keep their WorldTeam licence, and even those teams that have had a multi-year licence are required to undergo the registration process each year so that the licence commission can verify that they still meet the four non-sporting criteria.

Teams that acquired their licences in 2020, 2021, 2022 (and, if applicable, in 2023) will expire at the end of the 2023 season. A licence issued in 2023 and 2025 will be issued for one year. In 2026, onward licences will be issued for three years.  

In order for teams to acquire a WorldTeam licence going forward, they now have to meet the four non-sporting criteria and the points ranking across two and then three-year world ranking systems.

Teams

There are currently 15 top-tier teams heading into the 2023 season, including Canyon-SRAM, EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, FDJ-SUEZ, Human Powered Health, Israel Premier Tech-Roland, Liv Racing TeqFind, Movistar, Team DSM, Jayco AlUla, Jumbo-Visma, SD Worx, Trek-Segafredo, UAE Team ADQ, UNO-X Pro Cycling, and the newest addition to secure a licence this year, Fenix-Deceuninck.

WorldTeams are permitted to hire a maximum of 20 riders and up to 22 if two neo-pros are hired; however, most teams' rosters are between 14-16 riders in 2023.

The top-tier teams have automatic invitations to the WorldTour events, as do the top two ranked second-tier teams; Ceratizit- WNT Pro Cycling Team and Lifeplus Wahoo. 

Other teams among the top 20 in the rankings include Parkhotel Valkenburg, Atom Deweloper Posciellux.pl Wroclaw, AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep and Team Coop-Hitec Products.

UAE Development Team (formerly Valcar Travel & Service) and Canyon-SRAM Generation are competitive among the world rankings, too. However because they are officially registered as development programmes for their corresponding WorldTeams, they are not permitted to race at the same events or apply for a top-tier licence in future.

There are currently 54 Continental-level teams.

Points

The 2023 UCI World Ranking for the teams will be updated weekly by adding the points obtained from the start of the season by the eight best riders under contract with each team at the time of the ranking.

Teams will then be ranked on a two-year system. The UCI will add the points of each women's UCI team in the world ranking that was established at the end of 2022, with the points that each team earns at the races in 2023, according to article 2.10.045.

This two-year system will determine a team's ranking used during the WorldTeam licencing application process ahead of the 2024 and 2026 seasons. A three-year system will be used to determine the sporting criterion for 2029.

The 15 top-ranked teams in the above-mentioned ranking, among the teams that have applied for a WorldTeam licence, having also met the four criteria; administrative, ethical, organizational and financial, are then deemed to have met the sporting criteria, according to article 2.13.42.

Any points that are earned from the start of the season until the date of a transfer to another team are added to the points of the former team. Likewise, any points that a rider earns as of the date of the transfer to a new team until the last day of the season are added to the points of the new team. Also, points earned by trainees or development riders will not be added to the host teams.

Teams in danger of relegation

EF Education-TIBCO-SVB, Fenix-Deceuninck, and Liv Racing TeqFind were all close to the bottom of the top 15 in the UCI World Ranking at the end of 2022 in 11th-13th place, respectively, and will need to consider their performances and point strategy this season if they want to remain high enough in the standings.

Israel Premier Tech-Roland, Uno-X Pro Cycling and Human Powered Health, however, are the only three top-tier teams that found themselves outside of the top 15 in the UCI World Ranking at the end of the 2022 season.

It's a dangerous place to be when there are Continental teams such as Ceratizit-WNT, Lifeplus-Wahoo, Parkhotel Valkenburg, and AG Insurance-Soudal-QuickStep with an interest in moving up to the WorldTour.

Israel Premier Tech-Roland has undergone significant upgrades in their second season on the Women's WorldTour as Israel Premier Tech increased its funding and moved into a title sponsorships role. The team hired 10 new riders for the 2023 season.

The team retained their top performer from last year, Tamara Dronova, Caroline Baur and Hannah Buch, and signed former double junior World Champion Elena Pirrone alongside Fariba Hashimi, Sofia Collinelli, Fien Delbaere, Nathalie Eklund, Mia Griffin, Silvia Magri, Thị Thật Nguyễn, Claire Steels, and Lara Vieceli. The team also confirmed the last-minute signing of Olympic champion Anna Kiesenhofer.

Dronova, who secured top-10s in many of the biggest races on the calendar, believes that with a little more time and experience, the team will begin to show themselves in the races.

They are off to a promising start with Steels as their top performer at the Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Road Race and Dronova finishing in the top 10 at Women Cycling Pro Costa De Almería. 

Uno-X Pro Cycling has brought in former world champion Amalie Dideriksen, Maria Giulia Confalonieri and Anouska Koster, and all will undoubtedly help the team with a race-winning strategy and, in turn, acquire points to put toward the two-year ranking system. 

The team, however, might find themselves starting off on the back foot, having decided not to make the trip to Australia for the opening Women's WorldTour races. While the other two teams are already gaining points, they don't start their season until February in Spain.

The biggest surprise of all could be Human Powered Health which has already leaped ahead after securing points at the Tour Down Under and Cadel Evans Road Race with strong results from Nina Buijsman, Henrietta Christie, Daria Pikulik and Kaia Schmid, along with Jesse Vandenbulcke in Almeria. 

In total, they earned 745 points in January, already more than 80% of what they earned (914 points) in the whole of last season.