Simon Yates to be crowned WorldTour champion ahead of Peter Sagan

Simon Yates (Mitchelton-Scott) is set to be crowned 2018 WorldTour champion at the end of this week. The Briton remains at the top of the rankings after Il Lombardia and the Tour of Turkey wrapped up this weekend, with this week's Tour of Guangxi the final event on the WorldTour calendar.

There was no change in the top 10 after the weekend, with Yates, who has led the way since winning the Vuelta a España in the middle of September, standing ahead of Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) and Greg Van Avermaet (BMC Racing) round out the top five. 

Neither Yates nor Sagan have raced at WorldTour level since the Vuelta. Valverde, on the other hand, rode Il Lombardia on Saturday but made no significant inroads as he finished 11th. Even if he'd have won the race, the 500-point haul would still have left him just shy of Yates.

Yates stands on 3,072 points, with Sagan on 2,992 and Valverde on 2,609. None of them are racing the Tour of Guangxi, so there are no more opportunities for the standings to chance. In fact, no one in the top 15 is racing in China this week, so the only changes that can be expected are minor rises for Trek-Segafredo's Jasper Stuyven (19th), FDJ's Arnaud Démare (20th), and BMC's Richie Porte (25th). For Stuyven or Démare to crack the top 10 they'd have to win every stage and the overall.

The big riser thanks to this weekend's action was Thibaut Pinot (FDJ), whose 500 points for his Il Lombardia victory catapulted him 17 places into 17th overall. Runner-up Vincenzo Nibali (Bahrain-Merida) jumped some 23 places to go 35th, while third-placed Dylan Teuns (BMC Racing) leaped 19 places into 37th. Fourth-placed Rigoberto Urán (EF-Drapac) moved 18 places to sit just outside the top 50, and fifth-placed Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) was fifth at Lombardia and rose seven places into 18th.

Over at the Tour of Turkey, Diego Ulissi (UAE Team Emirates) finished fourth overall to move up nine places into 31st, while Alexey Lutsenko (Astana), Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe), Nathan Haas (Katusha-Alpecin) all scored well at the race to make advances in the standings, though all outside the top 50.

Yates amassed the bulk of his lead at the Vuelta, though he did score well throughout the season. He won three stages at the Giro d'Italia and was successful in week-long races, with a stage win and second overall at Paris-Nice, a stage win and fourth overall at the Volta a Catalunya, and a stage win and second overall at the Tour de Pologne.

Yates has the WorldTour classification wrapped up but he sits second in the 'World Ranking', which works on a rolling 12-month basis, rather than from the start to the end of the season. Valverde leads those standings, with Elia Viviani (Quick-Step Floors) in third. 

Back in the WorldTour rankings, the teams classification is set to be won be Quick-Step Floors, who have an unassailable lead over Team Sky in second and Bora-Hansgrohe in third.

The Tour of Guangxi begins on Tuesday and finishes on Sunday, after which the WorldTour awards will be given out at the UCI Cycling Gala.

UCI 2018 WorldTour Ranking