'We're riding with a completely different mentality than last season' – XDS-Astana not chasing UCI points in 2026 despite earning 1,000 in one day

XDS-Astana have said that they moved away from last season's "one-time" strategy of chasing UCI points, even after racking up a serious gain of 1,068 points in one day on Wednesday.

In 2025, the Kazakhstani team rallied to secure WorldTour status, racking up 32 wins and 6,727 UCI points as they finished fourth in the season-end rankings among the top 18 teams during the three-year license period.

The team has enjoyed a flying start to 2026, too, with six wins already. Following the end of the Tour of Oman, won by Cristian Scaroni ahead of teammate Cristían Rodríguez, they lie second in the UCI rankings on 2,447.7 points, behind only UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

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"We're riding with a completely different mentality than last season," XDS-Astana Directeur Sportif Dmitry Fofonov told Wielerflits in Oman.

"Racing for wins is the way we like best. You don't want to miss out on victory when you start with three good riders just to score with all three of them, do you? I assure you, we won't be racing that way next year. Astana is all about winning races.

"We're in a completely different situation than last year. We were in trouble then. We desperately needed the points, so we made a one-time plan. Against our nature, just to secure our license.

"In the 14 years I was on the team before that, the term 'UCI points' was never mentioned once. We've always been a team that rides for victories. I still believe the points will come naturally."

The points and wins have certainly been flowing to start 2026. With six wins, they're third among teams at this early point of the season.

Scaroni, who led the team with 2,274 points last year, opened the team's account at the Classica Camp de Morvedre last month, while Matteo Malucelli won a stage at the AlUlaTour.

Last week, former under-23 world champion Yevgeniy Fedorov led a team and nation one-two at the Asian Continental Championships time trial ahead of Nicolas Vinokourov.

Tuesday brought yet more success and more points, too. Fedorov, Haoyu Su, and Vinokourov finished first, second, and fourth in the road race, respectively, bringing 575 points.

Over at the Tour of Oman, Scaroni and Rodríguez finished one-two in the Green Mountain finale and the overall standings, with the team adding 493 points to their tally.

XDS-Astana will aim to remain in the WorldTour beyond the current three-year cycle, but wins – and in top-level races – will be the goal, rather than targeting smaller races which bring points hauls.

"We're now entering a new three-year cycle that will determine promotion and relegation. You can afford to lose points again, because a new cycle is starting anyway," Fofonov said.

"Suppose we don't get many points now, there's always next year to make up for it. If that happens again, you shouldn't start thinking about points again until 2028. It's a kind of emergency strategy, which you should only apply in that situation.

"We may not have scored enough in the WorldTour races last year. Someone like Christian Scaroni mainly earned his points at the level below the WorldTour, while I hope they can also compete for top-tier titles this year, like in the Ardennes Classics. Besides that, we naturally want to keep winning a lot of races."