Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) is still holding firm after almost three months atop the WorldTour rankings. Van Avermaet soared into the lead after a stellar start to his Classics campaign and built up such an advantage that he has been untouchable so far, despite not scoring points since Liege-Bastogne-Liege in April. He still has 423 points over the next best rider in the standings, Alejandro Valverde (Movistar).
Valverde finds himself in a BMC Racing sandwich, with Richie Porte jumping from seventh to third following a strong ride at the Criterium du Dauphine. Porte did not win the French stage race, after being pushed out of the yellow jersey on the final day of racing, but still clocked up 505 points over the week’s racing.
The man who beat Porte to victory on Sunday, Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), has climbed from a lowly 105th in the standings to just outside the top 20. He’s still a long way off the top 10, but his points haul has moved Astana from 17th up to 15th in the team rankings. They’ll be hoping for some good fortune at the Tour de France to help them climb a little higher by the end of the summer.
Back in the individual standings, there were a few more movers and shakers. Alberto Contador (Trek-Segafredo) made it into the top 10, while Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) and Daniel Martin (Quick-Step Floors) both moved up places – to fourth and seventh respectively – as Tom Dumoulin (Team Sunweb) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) both slipped back. Dumoulin is likely to make some ground back up at this week’s Tour de Suisse.
Despite having two riders in the top three, BMC Racing are still some way behind the leaders of the team competition, Quick-Step Floors. The latter has four riders in the top 20, with Martin, Philippe Gilbert, Fernando Gaviria and Julian Alaphilippe. BMC Racing has just Van Avermaet and Porte, with their next best rider Rohan Dennis down in 27th. Dennis took victory in the Tour de Suisse prologue and wore the race leader’s jersey for a day, as did his teammate Stefan Kung. However, Gilbert also claimed a stage for Quick-Step Floors so that 1,752-point gap is unlikely to close too much.
Further back, Team Sky jumped Orica-Scott to move into fourth, while Astana and AG2R La Mondiale made some ground.
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