Following the publication of the lists of teams entered by the International Cycling Union (UCI) for the 2023 season, the UCI announces several modifications to “Part 2 – Road Races” of the UCI Regulations, which will enter into force on 1 January 2023.
At the end of the three-year cycle, at the end of which the UCI WorldTour licenses were awarded to the teams, the various players involved in professional men’s road cycling expressed a desire to adjust the existing points scale to give more value to the races. WorldTour, and rebalancing the respective importance placed on one-day races and stage races.
The main changes in the scale of points awarded by the different race classes in the UCI International Road Calendar are the following:
– Increase in the number of points awarded by the three Grand Tours – the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta Ciclista a España (final general classification, stages and secondary classifications).
– Creation of a special category for the five Monuments (Milano-Sanremo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia) with a higher number of points awarded compared to the other one-day races in the UCI world tour.
– Increase in the number of points awarded during race stages of the UCI WorldTour and the UCI ProSeries; in the future, points will be awarded for results below third place (up to fifth, tenth or fifteenth, depending on the competition).
– Increase in the number of points distributed during the Olympic Games and the UCI Road World Championships (road races and time trials in the Elite categories).
These changes, which will serve to widen the distance between the points obtained in the most prestigious races and those in the lower categories, aim to encourage teams to enter their best riders in the most important races and ensure a better correlation between the points earned and the sporting achievement involved, which is clearly at a higher level in UCI WorldTour races with all UCI WorldTeams.
In addition, the UCI World Ranking by teams, which until now was determined by the total points obtained by the top 10 riders of each team, will now be calculated based on the results of the top 20 riders (which corresponds to the minimum number of riders for UCI ProTeams).
This increase in the number of running backs is designed to not only better reflect the competitive strength of the teams, but also to reduce the disadvantage of their best running backs being unavailable for any reason (for example, injury or illness) during a given season. .
With the UCI World Team Ranking acting as the basis for the evaluation of teams in terms of sporting criteria (for the purpose of granting UCI WorldTour licences), an increase in the number of riders whose results are taken into account will help to reduce the pressure which is currently exercised only on a limited number of them, and which can lead to a series of negative consequences (risk of injury, excessive number of race days, temptation to doping, etc.).
The system of mandatory invitations to UCI WorldTour races has also been temporarily modified. For the 2023 season, any UCI ProTeam that has lost its status as a UCI WorldTeam at the end of the 2022 season due to sporting criteria and that is not one of the teams eligible for mandatory invitations (as set out in article 2.1.007 b of UCI Regulations) will automatically receive invitations to stage races (with the exception of Grand Tours) and one-day UCI WorldTour races.
This modification is aimed at maintaining stability within the teams and is limited to a transition year, i.e. only for 2023, after three years of significant turmoil due to the global pandemic.
SOURCE: Luciana Sposetti (www.zonadeciclistas.com), sports.caracoltv.com