With the 2024 WorldTour and Women's WorldTour seasons recently drawing to a close at the Tour of Guangxi and Tour of Chongming Island, the UCI rankings for the year have been finalised.
It will come as no surprise to learn the winners of the men's and women's world rankings as world champions Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) and Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) top the charts.
For Pogačar, his fourth ranking victory in as many years was a case of total domination. His 25 wins this season, including the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and World Championships, see him end the season on 11,655 points, almost 4,000 more than his winning total from 2023.
He beats double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) to the top of the rankings with the Belgian lying in second place on 6,072.6 points. Fellow Belgian Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who won nine races including Milan-San Remo and three Tour stages, ends up in third place on 4,790 points.
Ben O'Connor (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) enjoyed a career-best season to finish fourth on 4,096 points. Second places at the Vuelta a España and World Championships have been his 2024 highlights. Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders winner Mathieu van der Poel rounds out the top five on 4,053 points.
Kopecky ends up as the clear winner of the women's ranking with 6,389 points thanks to her 16 wins including Strade Bianche, Paris-Roubaix Femmes and the world title. The Belgian beats her teammate Demi Vollering to the top.
The 2023 ranking winner racked up 15 wins of her own this year with the Vuelta España Femenina, Tour de Suisse and two stages of the Tour de France Femmes on her palmarès to finish up on 5,019.3 points.
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Elisa Longo Borghini (Lidl-Trek) finished in third spot on 4,798.8 points having won the Giro d'Italia Women and Tour of Flanders this year. Behind her, Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) with 22 wins and 3,811 points, and Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease A Bike) with seven wins and 2,808.7 points round out the top five.
Pogačar's domination
For Pogačar, his 25 wins and 11,655 points barely tell the story of his utter domination of road cycling this season. The Slovenian won almost half his races, having taken on 58 race days since starting his campaign with an 81km solo attack at Strade Bianche back in March.
Since then, he's spent 390km solo on the way to victory, including 51km at the Worlds, 48km at Il Lombardia, 38km at the Giro dell'Emilia, 34km apiece on stage 20 of the Giro d'Italia and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, 29km on stage 6 of the Volta a Catalunya and 23km at the GP Montréal.
This week marks his 171st at the top of the UCI rankings, well ahead of the men in second and third place in that statistic, Primož Roglič (75) and Peter Sagan (69).
Were he to theoretically have raced as a one-man team this year, his points total would've slotted him between Israel-Premier Teach and EF Education-EasyPost as the 12th-best squad in the world.
Dani Ostanek is Senior News Writer at Cyclingnews, having joined in 2017 as a freelance contributor, later being hired full-time. Her favourite races include Strade Bianche, the Tour de France Femmes, Paris-Roubaix, and Tro-Bro Léon.
