Cofidis climbs above Picnic-PostNL as Arkéa-B&B Hotels continues to flounder in WorldTour relegation clash

In the week since our last relegation watch checkup Cofidis has climbed out of 18th place, putting Picnic-PostNL closer to the danger zone for WorldTour relegation at the end of the season.

The German team were buoyed by the victory of Nils Eekhoff in Nokere Koerse last month but they couldn't match a series of top results from Cofidis. 

Alexis Renard scored 95 points by finishing seventh in the Classic Brugge-De Panne bunch sprint while Aimé De Gendt earned his 120 points in the E3 Saxo Classic with a fine seventh place. Emanuel Buchmann and Sylvain Moniquet racked up a handful of points in the Volta a Catalunya and even Bryan Coquard's second place in the 1.1-ranked La Roue Tourangelle was worth a significant 85 points.

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Picnic-PostNL's only score in the latest update came from John Degenkolb, who finished 11th in Gent-Wevelgem, worth only 70 points.

The other team who are in the most trouble when it comes to the relegation standings is Arkéa-B&B Hotels. They've been lagging behind Uno-X Mobility as well as XDS Astana and haven't made much progress in the past week. 

Arkéa-B&B Hotels haven't been able to count on sprinter Arnaud Démare, but scored 110 points in La Roue Tourangelle with Clément Venturini and Jenthe Biermans in fourth and fifth in the sprint. It's a strategy the team used to be promoted to the WorldTour from 2020-2022 but one that hasn't been quite as fruitful since the UCI altered the points structure, giving more weight to WorldTour races and Grand Tour stages.

XDS Astana crushing Arkéa-B&B Hotels in fight against relegation

XDS Astana continued to chip away at their deficit to the top 18 WorldTour teams in the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings. If they can get ahead of Picnic-PostNL, Cofidis, or both, they will meet the sporting requirement toward a WorldTour licence for the 2026-2028 seasons.

XDS Astana began the season 4,720-points behind Cofidis but have brought that tally down to 2267.49 points below Picnic-PostNL.

Over the past week, the team have had a variety of covert top 10 finishes of value: Simone Velasco, sixth in Coppi e Bartali GC, was worth 50 points. Max Kanter came sixth in Classic Brugge-De Panne, earning 115. Mike Teunissen sprinted to 10th in the E3 Saxo Classic, gaining 68 points, and Davide Ballerini got a whopping 175 for sixth place in Gent-Wevelgem.

If the team keep up the good work and Cofidis and Picnic-PostNL continue to struggle, XDS Astana could be into the top 18 by June, based on our projections.

Uno-X Mobility is also on a trajectory to overtake at least one team and move into the top 18 this season. They also posted impressive results over the past week to keep them on this path.

Erlend Blikra sprinted to sixth in Classic Brugge-De Panne (120pts) and won La Roue Tourangelle (125pts). Alexander Kristoff just missed the podium in Gent-Wevelgem, netting 275 points for fourth place. Sakarias Koller Løland only earned 30 points for eighth place in Paris-Camembert but is still in 19th place in the three-year rankings.

The Norwegian team are 2,022 points behind Picnic-PostNL. 

That all makes for quite a worrying situation for Arkéa-B&B Hotels, who have averaged only 124 points per week over the past 10 weeks, compared with XDS Astana's 450 average and Uno-X Mobility's 285.

The team are getting some results in UCI 1.1 races – fourth in Paris-Camembert and La Roue Tourangelle – while Luca Mozzato was 11th in Brugge-De Panne, worth only 40 points.

Arkéa-B&B Hotels are now 24th in the 2025 UCI rankings and 21st in the 2023-2025 standings.

The team aren't the only ones who need to be concerned, however. Intermarché-Wanty have a longer way to fall than Cofidis but are averaging just 152 points per week. A few injuries and illnesses in the third year of the three-year relegation cycle is what got Israel-Premier Tech demoted – Intermarché-Wanty need to start gaining more points if they want to stop themselves travelling down the same path.