Relegation watch: Movistar reverse fortunes at Vuelta a España

The latest UCI rankings add up points from the Vuelta a España, Grand Prix de Québec and Montréal, and GP de Fourmies. The truncated Tour of Britain hasn't counted yet. The biggest winner of the week has been the Movistar Team, who vaulted out of 18th place in the 2020-2022 UCI Team Rankings into 14th and far out of reach of the dreaded relegation zone.

The week also saw some rumours that the promotion/relegation scheme might not go forward for 2023 as planned, with both EF Education-EasyPost boss Jonathan Vaughters and Israel-Premier Tech owner Sylvan Adams calling the system "promotion or death". Several others have questioned why the UCI would want to limit the number of WorldTour teams at a time when there are 20 teams with budgets to field top-tier squads.

There have been hints of a compromise, an increase of the maximum size of the peloton back to 200, which would increase the number of wildcard teams available to GrandTour organisers and allow the WorldTour to remain at 20, but the UCI has insisted that no decision has been made.

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Most likely, any changes would be announced after the annual meeting of the Management Committee at the Road World Championships next week.

If the scheme does go ahead, Israel-Premier Tech did themselves little favours in the latest rankings, gaining a scant 138 points to Vuelta a España winners QuickStep-AlphaVinyl's massive 1,898-point haul.

Of the top 22 teams in the world, only TotalEnergies and Uno-X earned fewer points. The French outfit lost two positions after not participating in the Vuelta, gaining 125 points, while the Norwegian team got no results.

That leaves the Israeli-Canadian team with little hopes of avoiding relegation and, either a fight from Sylvan Adams or a potential dissolution of the team.

While Lotto Soudal again made gains to climb out of 19th, they remain stuck in the relegation zone but, rather than chasing Movistar, their nearest rival in 18th is now Cofidis, who plummeted down the rankings by three spots, while the gap to the next rung remains has yawned out to 702 points for the Belgian team. Lotto Soudal remain determined to eliminate the gap by sending stacked teams to the late-season one-day races.

Cofidis' strategy of sending Guillaume Martin to Canada failed to produce the intended results, with only 40 points gained there. The French team lost sprinter Bryan Coquard from the Vuelta, but Jesus Herrada salvaged their race with a stage win, a third place on a stage, and eight points for 56th on GC.

Movistar made the biggest gains, although Gonzalo Serrano, declared winner of the Tour of Britain after the death of Queen Elizabeth II cancelled the race hasn't seen the points come in yet. Enric Mas, second to Remco Evenepoel at the Vuelta, and Ivan Garcia Cortina, fifth in Québec added to the team's total.

The biggest budget teams continued to rake in the most points aside from the Spanish team: Jumbo-Visma maintained their status at the top of the three-year and 2022 rankings with almost 1,000 points – Wout van Aert's second in Québec was worth 400 of that; QuickStep-AlphaVinyl earned 1,898 between Evenepoel's Vuelta win and Andrea Bagioli's third place in Montréal; Ineos Grenadiers brought in 1,253 between Carlos Rodríguez's Vuelta result, Tom Pidcock and Omar Fraile's podiums in Britain (which were counted unlike Serrano's), and Adam Yates' fourth place in Montréal – among others.

The relegation watch may be moot if the UCI decides to suspend the system for 2023, but teams are still hedging their bets and keeping riders from heading to Australia for Worlds to chase points in Europe.

The organisers of the slew of 1.1 and ProSeries races between now and the end of October will most certainly be pleased to have such competitive fields but the UCI having their marquee race in Wollongong drained of its depth may well lead them to rethink the points structure at the very least.

Watch this space.