Relegation battle: Lotto-Soudal is not finished, when will EF-EasyPost wake up? † cycling

Cycling website lanternerouge.com.au keeps a close eye on the relegation battle in the peloton. This article is inspired by their detailed calculations.

In the European football competitions we know the relegates, at the highest level the relegation battle drags on for a few months.

For those who fall out of the sky, we would like to reiterate that the current WorldTour licenses – automatic entrance tickets for the most important races on the calendar – will expire after this season.

For the coming seasons (2023 to 2025), the WorldTour from 18 teams to exist. It concerns the teams with the most UCI points between 2020 and 2022.

For these calculations, the sum of the best 10 riders per team is made per season.

The classic superpowers such as Quick Step-Alpha Vinyl and Jumbo-Visma can sleep soundly, Alpecin-Fenix ​​(that wants to join the WorldTour) cycles in the safe zone and Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert also sits after a farmers (for) year in one seat.

For the time being Lotto-Soudal (19th) and Israel-Premier Tech (20th) of the current WorldTour teams the child of the account.

They are not in the top 18 and according to the current proportions their place will soon be taken by newcomers Alpecin-Fenix ​​and Arkéa-Samsic.

It has been known for longer than today that Lotto-Soudal and Israel-Premier Tech are in the danger zone. And the Giro d’Italia has changed little or nothing.

Of Giro was the first big round of the season and a lot of points could be earned between Budapest and Verona.

The majority of the pink points have fallen into the basket of the teams with a classification man. Lotto-Soudal collected – without stage win(s) for Caleb Ewan – barely 184 points, Israel-Premier Tech was simply nowhere (24 points).

But that skinny Giro doesn’t have to be a drama. During the Tour of Italy there were also a lot smaller rates and a team like Lotto-Soudal has fully harvested there (just think of the victories of Arnaud De Lie and Florian Vermeersch).

Those victories weigh heavily – and that’s to say the least. Compared to the 184 points during the Giro, there were no fewer than 736 Lotto points on the continental race calendar in the same period.

The spread is also clear among other teams in the danger zone: just look at Cofidis (92 in the Giro versus 804 in the other races) and Israel-Premier Tech (24 versus 212).

What is the conclusion after the month of May with the combination of the Giro and the smaller rates? Well: Lotto-Soudal is not giving up yet and is steadily nibbling at his backlog.

That’s a boost, especially when you know that Caleb Ewan didn’t win a stage in the Giro and Thomas De Gendt (stage winner in Naples) isn’t even one of the best 10 points pickers in his team.

The provisional top 10 of Lotto-Soudal this season consists of Arnaud De Lie, Tim Wellens, Victor Campenaerts, Philippe Gilbert, Caleb Ewan, Steff Cras, Maxim Van Gils, Florian Vermeersch, Andreas Kron and Sylvain Moniquet.

Lotto-Soudal seems to have done its homework well by realizing in time that the relegation will not (exclusively) be settled in the WorldTour races and grand tours, but that (without a classification stopper) the side races have a (much) major(er) impact. to have.

The colleagues and rivals of the Belgian tradition team have not understood that lesson or not in time, or so it seems.

For example, BikeExchange (17th) and EF-EasyPost (18th) dangle by the tail and they feel Lotto-Soudal and Israel-Premier Tech panting down their necks.

They had hoped to sneak away in the Giro with GC riders Simon Yates and Hugh Carthy, but their Italian tough run turned out to be meager and because of that disappointing loot they are now left with the baked pears.

Slowly catching up has to be made and the spectrum must above all be broadened. Dylan Groenewegen has already understood that message and does his part, at EF they still seem to be taking a long spring sleep.

The above developments also have consequences for the organizers and the racing behavior of certain teams.

Races like the Tour of Estonia or the Sibiu Tour in Romania were normally skilfully ignored by most top-level teams, but suddenly they are all drumming at the starting line.

Relatively “cheap” points can be earned and setbacks such as Movistar and Cofidis still cannot sit back on the sofa. That is why they are there like the chickens to race there anyway. Customers such as BikeExchange and Israel-Premier Tech have also expanded their race calendar at the last minute in recent weeks.

Only EF-EasyPost is stubbornly looking the other way and not deviating from the original path. For example, in June (Dauphiné and Switzerland) it trades almost exclusively at the highest level and ignores the lower echelons.

So we may conclude, Lotto-Soudal has still not been sentenced to a lower status thanks to its own advance in the smaller races and the lack of calculated outliers at competitors such as EF-EasyPost and BikeExchange.

Moreover, the National Lottery has already announced several times that the relegation does not have to mean the end of the world, because there is also a safety net.

There is indeed a loophole within that point maze.

Compare it with how Alpecin-Fenix ​​has been able to race in the past two seasons: as the best team at a lower level, it was automatically given the right to start (right to start, no start obligation) in all WorldTour races.

Such wildcards will also be handed out in 2023. This allocation is made on the basis of the sporting ranking in 2022 (and therefore not for the period 2020-2022).

Of the teams that fall out of the top 18 (WorldTour), the best 2 teams will receive wildcards for all WorldTour races in 2023, number 3 will receive invitations for the one-day races in the WorldTour (and therefore not the stage races).

In that “side ranking” of the teams that do not belong to the current top 18, Lotto-Soudal is in the lead ahead of TotalEnergies and Israel-Premier Tech.

So here too, Sep Vanmarcke’s team is not in good shape, but it is by no means unimportant to point out that they are performing better in the 2022 classification for the time being than teams that are currently still in the safe top 18.

In other words: if Lotto-Soudal still jumps to the top 18 over EF-EasyPost, for example, then not Lotto but EF will be a relegator in the dance for the wildcards.

And since Israel has a head start in that “race in the race” over EF, it then flips over Jonathan Vaughters’ squad to the better wildcard position (all races instead of just the one-day races).

It is therefore possible that situations will arise at the end of this season where a team that has already been mathematically relegated from the WorldTour grants another team a bonus if it benefits itself in the fight for the wildcard classification.

So take that (perverse?) mindset with you if some riders or teams don’t give each other the light in the eye or seem to be racing against team X or Y.