Relegation watch: Lotto Soudal, Israel-Premier Tech lose ground after Tour de France

In the hunt to remain in the WorldTour in 2023 when the UCI debuts its promotion/relegation system, the Tour de France offered the biggest opportunities for teams to turn their fortunes around. However, Lotto Soudal and Israel-Premier Tech fell even further behind in their efforts to climb out of the relegation zone.

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Lotto Soudal had an awful Tour de France, with Caleb Ewan struggling to finish the race and unable to score a single UCI point. The Belgian team's only points in the Tour came from Andreas Kron, who was fourth on stage 8. 

Israel-Premier Tech won stages with Simon Clarke and Hugo Houle. The Canadian also gained points for third on stage 13 and 24th place overall. He was docked 25 points for littering on one stage. The team's 333 points in July were not enough to move over Lotto Soudal.

These two teams can be have some consolation that they still have a chance to be the best-ranked ProTeams, and even if they aren't in the WorldTour next year they may still earn automatic invitations to all the major races.

While Lotto Soudal are ranked 12th of the teams in 2022 and look firm to get those automatic invitations should they be relegated, the situation is more dire for Israel-Premier Tech, who are a distant 18th and 319 points behind TotalEnergies.

The battle for those two wildcard spots will be fought through to the end of the season.

Alpecin-Deceuninck and Arkéa-Samsic continue to be the teams most likely to earn their promotion to the WorldTour in 2023 by climbing into the top 18 of the three-year team rankings. The Dutch outfit won two stages with Jasper Philipsen, including the most coveted of sprint stages on the Champs-Élysées. Most of Arkéa's points - 400 of 480 - came from Nairo Quintana's sixth place in the final standings.

EF Education-EasyPost, who were slow to gain points in the first six months of the season, made up for lost ground and moved ahead of Movistar thanks to stage wins by Magnus Cort and his time in the mountains classification lead. Now, the pink-clad outfit are a solid 936 points ahead of Lotto Soudal, closing in on Cofidis in 16th, and looking far safer than in June.

Had Enric Mas not dropped out of the race while sitting 11th, the two teams would be nearly even. 

BikeExchange-Jayco, with stage wins by Dylan Groenewegen and Michael Matthews, among other results, also distanced themselves from the relegation zone. Although the Australian team remain in 18th, they're now 654 points ahead of Lotto Soudal rather than the 21 point lead they had before the Tour.

Uno-X, not invited to the Tour de France made no progress toward WorldTour promotion and are unlikely to make be one of the top two ProTeams in 2022 - the teams that will earn automatic invitations to the Tour next year.

The Tour de France also highlighted the great inequalities at the top of the WorldTour. Jumbo-Visma mopped up nearly a quarter of all the points available during the Tour, with Jonas Vingegaard raking in 1,000 points for the overall win, 120 for the mountains classification, 25 points for each day in the maillot jaune, 120 points each for his two stage wins - a total of 1,760 points. That was more than UAE Team Emirates - with second-placed Tadej Pogačar - earned in the entire Tour de France.

Adding to Jumbo-Visma's tally was green jersey winner Wout van Aert, who had three stage wins and days in both the yellow and green jersey to bring his tally to 845 points - again, more than all but three other teams' Tour de France totals. The 'killer bees' three-year points total is almost triple that of Israel-Premier Tech.

UAE Team Emirates earned 1,705 points to Ineos' 1,175, with Groupama-FDJ next best with 987.

Vastly underperforming in terms of budget were Bahrain Victorious who earned just 55 points, and Movistar Team who eked out 170. Even QuickStep-AlphaVinyl with two stage wins by Yves Lampaert and Fabio Jakobsen, didn't match the rest of their three-year record, but have plenty of wiggle room with the third-most points of the period.