Two Pro teams are certain to be promoted based on the points they have accumulated in races from the beginning of 2023. Lotto now ranks 12th with a total of 30,125 points, and Israel–Premier Tech are 14th, with 28,542. Arkéa–B&B Hotels has 21,806 points, more than 3,000 behind the team occupying the 18th position in the UCI Technical Rankings, Intermarché–Wanty, at 25,092. I’m certain that numerous WorldTour teams have already been wooing its star rider, Kévin Vauquelin, who has had an excellent year, with five victories, a second-place finish in the Tour de Suisse GC and seventh in the Tour de France.
Intermarché–Wanty has had a bad season, registering only three victories all year, one of which was Georg Zimmerman’s win in the German National Road Race Championship, which does not offer any UCI points. Its major problem has been the bad form of its star rider, last year’s Tour de France Škoda Green Jersey winner Biniam Girmay, who has not won a single race this year. The 1,160 points he has collected this year are nearly 2,000 points fewer than his haul in 2024.
Girmay is scheduled to ride in only four more races this year, including the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec on September 12, in which he’ll be racing against four-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar, Visma–Lease a Bike’s Wout van Aert, and, notably, Tobias Halland Johannessen, of Pro team Uno-X Mobility. The Norwegian team ranks 20th in the Technical Rankings, with 23,449 points, just 1,643 points behind Intermarché–Wanty. Girmay’s performances in the remaining races may prove vital to his team remaining in the top tier, though his presence on the squad will likely earn Intermarché-Wanty a wild card to race in most top races even if it is relegated.
UNO-X Mobility has had a very good year with 18 victories, mostly in second-level races. With the team scheduled to ride in only 12 races the rest of the year, Johannessen’s performances in the Bretagne Classic on August 31 and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal may be decisive.
With 23,908 points, Cofidis ranks between Intermarché-Wanty and Uno-X Mobility, one spot below safety. It has put much of its hope of remaining in the top tier on the shoulders of 24-year-old Milan Fretin, who has registered three of its eight wins this year, as well as some important podium finishes. He is scheduled to ride in eight races in the next two months, including the five-stage top-level Renewi Tour, which kicks off on Wednesday.
Unlike Uno-X Mobility, Cofidis and Intermarché-Wanty will be racing in the Vuelta a España, which starts on Saturday and could make the difference with all the Grand Tour points on offer. Unfortunately for Intermarché-Wanty, this year’s edition will have few opportunities for sprinters, which means that Girmay will skip it. But the team has set a crazy-busy schedule for the rest of the year, riding in 30 races over the next two months in a desperate point-gathering frenzy.
With 25,808 points, only 2,000 ahead of Cofidis, the Dutch team Picnic PostNL would also appear to be at risk of relegation, especially as it has only five wins this year. But its 22-year-old rising star Oscar Onley, who finished fourth in the Tour de France, will be riding in the Tour of Britain and both the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal. If he flashes his Tour form, he should finish high enough in all three races to keep his team safe.
So it appears that the race for the final WorldTour spot will be between Intermarché-Wanty and Cofidis, with the outcome perhaps decided by the season’s final race, the Utsunomiya Japan Cup on October 19.
