Relegation Watch 2025: XDS Astana's stunning rise threatens Picnic-PostNL, Cofidis

After a mid-April dip in the pace of their point gathering, the XDS Astana Team made huge gains on remaining in the WorldTour in the past week, drawing to within 160 points of 18th placed Team Picnic-PostNl in the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings.

XDS Astana are holding steady in third overall for the 2025 rankings, and have gained 7,478 points so far. Picnic-PostNL have earned only 2,493 and are getting perilously close to dropping out of the top 18 position they need to hold at the end of this season to meet the UCI's sporting criteria for the next three-year WorldTour license (2026-2028).

More on the relegation watch further down the page.

2025 Team Rankings

The 2025 season has so far been dominated by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with number 1 ranked Tadej Pogačar fuelling a massive lead of 4,498 points over second placed Lidl-Trek. During the last three weeks since our previous relegation watch, Pogačar has scored 1,600 points alone - thanks to his Ardennes Classics results - wins in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and La Flèche Wallonne and second in the Amstel Gold Race.

The team also claimed the overall Tour de Romandie with João Almeida and third overall with Jay Vine, the overall win in the Vuelta Asturias Julio Alvarez Mendo by Marc Soler and a podium in De Brabantse Pijl by António Morgado.

Lidl-Trek have had a strong Classics campaign. With Giulio Ciccone taking second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège along with top 10s from Thibau Nys and Andrea Bagioli, and Mattias Skjelmose winning the Amstel Gold Race, the team have a solid lead of 1,848 points over XDS Astana in this year's rankings.

Visma-Lease a Bike are fourth overall, slipping well behind last year's second-place ranking. Wout van Aert was their top scorer during the previous three weeks with a fourth place in Amstel and second in De Brabantse Pijl.

There have been some minor reshufflings in the middle of the team rankings, with Uno-X Mobility holding strong in 10th, Ineos Grenadiers climbing to fifth from sixth, Soudal-Quickstep moving from eighth to seventh with the return of Remco Evenepoel, and Bahrain Victorious rising two places into ninth thanks to Lenny Martinez's second overall in Romandie and fourth in La Flèche Wallonne.

Further down, EF Education-EasyPost had a strong end to the Classics thanks to Ben Healy (third in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, fifth in Flèche) and Neilson Powless (fourth in Eschborn Frankfurt, 10th in Liège-Bastogne-Liège) and climbed into 12th from 14th.

Also on the rise were Jayco-AlUla (19th to 16th), thanks to Michael Matthews' win in Eschborn-Frankfurt along with fifth in Amstel and 11th in Liège.

It was bad news for Cofidis as they dropped two positions from 13th to 15th with Milan Fretin's Ronde van Limburg (1.1) win their best result, and for Intermarché-Wanty, who, despite Georg Zimmermann's win in Il Giro d'Abruzzo, dropped from 18th to 19th.

Israel-Premier Tech had the most precipitous drop, tumbling from 16th to 20th as Derek Gee's third place overall in the Tour of the Alps was worth only 125 points, and Marco Frigo's stage win was only worth 20.

Arkéa-B&B Hotels climbed out of the basement by one step, moving from 24th to 23rd ahead of Lotto thanks to Kévin Vauquelin's second place in La Flèche Wallonne.

2023-2025 Team Rankings

When it comes to the three-year rankings, Arkéa-B&B Hotels are still suffering badly and in need of a miracle to remain in the WorldTour, thanks in part to Israel-Premier Tech and Lotto gaining enough points in 2023 and 2024 to be in the top 15 of the three-year standings.

With these two ProTeams on a trajectory for promotion back into the WorldTour, there are three WorldTour teams fighting relegation and one ProTeam aiming to gain promotion: Arkéa, Picnic-PostNL and Cofidis are currently under the most pressure from XDS Astana and Uno-X Mobility.

XDS Astana have been on a rampage this season, and despite starting the last season of the three-year cycle in last place of the WorldTour teams, they've climbed into 19th and are on a steep trajectory.

They've earned 4,043 more points than Cofidis and 4,985 more points than Picnic-PostNl, and, as we predicted last month, they should overtake the German team and move into 18th next week.

Cofidis are just 519 points ahead of XDS Astana and, more importantly, are 2,111 points ahead of Uno-X Mobility.

The Norwegian team have kept up a steady stream of results, with Magnus Cort's second place in Eschborn-Frankfurt their latest success. However, they're on a much less aggressive path to the WorldTour, and Cofidis could yet fend off their challenge.

Picnic-PostNl, on the other hand, appear to be positioned to be overtaken by Uno-X Mobility unless the German team can score some major results in the Grand Tours. They currently have a 1,591-point advantage on the Norwegian team, which is not a lot, considering how XDS Astana wiped out a much larger advantage in three months.

The Giro d'Italia will be critical for the futures of these teams, and, with Romain Bardet enjoying his last hurrah at the Giro before he retires, it is an opportunity for Picnic-PostNL to turn things around. Uno-X Mobility were not awarded a wildcard invitation for the Giro d'Italia, so they will have to look elsewhere for points in May.

How teams earned their points is equally as interesting as how many they've earned. While UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Lidl-Trek have gained most of their points in the WorldTour races (71% and 82% respectively), XDS Astana achieved third place this year with a more balanced approach.

XDS Astana's points came from a balanced mix - 45% in the WorldTour, 26% in both Pro Series and x.1-ranked races, and a few from national or continental championships.

Uno-X Mobility has had a similar strategy, earning 54% in the WorldTour, 30% in x.1 races and 16% in the Pro Series.

The ratio isn't the whole story, however. Teams who are struggling to remain in the WorldTour also struggle to earn points in those races. While Arkéa-B&B Hotels and Cofidis each earned 39% in the top races, they gained just 900 and 1,322, respectively, in top races this year compared with XDS Astana's 3,349.

While Picnic-PostNL's ratio looks solid with 51% WorldTour, their total points score isn't enough to keep them afloat, either with their total points haul this year less than Astana's WorldTour tally.