Simon Gerrans’ overall victory at the Tour Down Under has secured the Orica-GreenEdge rider the number one ranked spot in both the WorldTour standings and the new rolling world ranking.
Gerrans won the Tour Down Under for a fourth time, beating fellow Australian Richie Porte (BMC) by nine seconds, with Sergio Henao (Team Sky) third at 11 seconds. Gerrans scored a total of 112 points for the WorldTour ranking; 100 for his overall victory and six points for both of his stage victories.
Porte is second in the WorldTour rankings with 86 points and Henao is third with 74 points. Orica-GreenEdge lead the first WorldTour team rankings of 2016 with 124 points, ahead of BMC and Team Sky. Australia dominates the nations ranking with 286 points.
The new world ranking is updated at the start of every week and Gerrans tops the third update with a total of 670 points. Overall victory at the Tour Down Under scored him 500 points in the world ranking. Porte is second with 485 points and Henao is third with 370 points. Australia naturally dominated the nations ranking with 1,986 points. Gerrans took the lead from New Zealand national road race champion Jason Christie.
Unlike the WorldTour ranking, which only takes WorldTour races into consideration and only allows points to be scored by riders from WorldTour teams, the new world ranking is open to all riders and will encompass results from the entire calendar, including the Continental circuits, National and World Championships, and Olympic Games.
The winner of the Tour de France will earn 1,000 points, compared to the 850 points awarded to the winners of the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España. A Tour stage win carries 120 points, compared to 100 at the Giro and Vuelta.
Victories in tier 1 WorldTour races, including the Tour Down Under, Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, the Monument Classics and the two Canadian WorldTour races are worth 500 points, with other WorldTour victories worth 400 points. Stage wins in tier 1 races carry 60 points, with 50 points on offer for stage wins at tier 2 events. Victory in a HC race carries 200 points, a class 1 victory is worth 125 points and class 2 is worth 40 points.
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Olympic and World Championships road race victories are valued at 600 points, with 350 awarded to the time trial winners.
The UCI has compared the new world ranking to that of the ATP ranking in tennis and highlighted that a similar ranking already exists in women’s cycling. The UCI noted that the rolling nature of the new ranking system will “only come fully into effect one year after its introduction,” that is, in time for the planned implementation of reforms to the cycling calendar in 2017.
