Rodriguez set for WorldTour title as Froome ends season

Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha) has moved ahead of Chris Froome (Sky) in the WorldTour standings following victory at Il Lombardia on Sunday. With the Briton set to miss the final WorldTour event, Tour of Beijing, due to injury, Rodriguez has all but sealed his third overall win in the WorldTour rankings in four seasons.

Rodriguez now holds a lead of 20 points over Froome and 67 over Alejandro Valverde (Movistar), and both men have ruled themselves out of the five-day Tour of Beijing which gets underway on Friday, October 11.

Valverde confirmed that his season was over immediately after finishing second at Il Lombardia, while Froome took to Twitter on Monday morning to declare that he will not participate in the Tour of Beijing.

“Not the way I wanted to end the season but my body had other ideas! Looking forward to some R&R and a gelati [sic] or two... :)” wrote Froome, who will, however, line up at the Saitama Criterium in Japan on October 26.

Dan Martin (Garmin-Sharp) finished a strong 4th at Il Lombardia on Sunday and jumped from 11th to 8th on the individual standings. The 27-year-old Irishman has the chance to gain a couple more places in the final standings with a strong showing at the Tour of Beijing, where he performed well last year.

Sky maintains its lead in the team standings, ahead of Movistar and Katusha, while Vacansoleil-DCM – which will disband at the end of the season – lies rooted to the bottom of the table with a meagre 125 points, which would be good enough only for 38th in the individual standings, level with Robert Gesink (Belkin).

Spain holds a commanding lead in the national standings, almost 800 points clear of the closest challenger Italy, while Colombia’s renaissance is born out by its third place in the ranking, ahead of Great Britain.

WorldTour rankings