pete's world cycling rankings, 2006.1

It's the first week of May, which means two things for fans of bicycle road racing. First, it's Giro time! Second, with the spring classics now behind us, and the first quarter of the annual cycling calendar now complete, it's a good time to reflect on the season so far. I'm going to try something new this year. Rather than the entirely subjective, personal rankings by general impression that I offered last year, I've decided to switch over to a formal points system (see description below). One of the main reasons for doing so is I am shifting my focus from individual rankings to team standings. Cycling remains both an individual and a team sport, and on a race-by-race basis, its individual side clearly stands out; we'll long remember that the last seven Tours de France were won by Lance Armstrong first, and Team US Postal / Discovery Channel a distant second. But especially now that the star riders are becoming ever more specialized and targeted in their personal goals, a season-long points system really only makes sense as a team concept. So who's winning the 2006 season so far? Here's the Top 20 (and their respective leading scorers), which just so happens to consist of the 20 official ProTour teams: 1. Quick.Step-Innergetic 269 points (Boonen 137) 2. Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears 242 (Valverde 180) 3. CSC 221 (Schleck 65, Cancellara 65) 4. Liberty Seguros-Würth Team 199 (Contador 62) 5. Davitamon-Lotto 162 (Evans 71) 6. Rabobank 157 (Freire 48) 7t. Lampre-Fondital 149 (Ballan 53) 7t.Discovery Channel 149 (Hoste 57) 9. Milram 121 (Petacchi 67) 10. Phonak Hearing Systems 104 (Landis 66) 11. Credit Agricole 90 (Hushovd 65) 12. Saunier Duval-Prodir 83 (Gomez 57) 13. Euskaltel-Euskadi 79 (Sanchez 79) 14t. T-Mobile 71 (Sinkewitz 37) 14t. Gerolsteiner 71 (Rebellin 22) 16. Française Des Jeux 56 (Eisel 23) 17. Liquigas 48 (Paolini 15) 18. Cofidis 34 (Bertagnolli 23) 19. Ag2r Prevoyance 27 (Gerrans 15) 20. Bouygues Telecom 26 (Voeckler 18) QuickStep not only tops the rankings but, by my estimation at least, has been the most consistent and impressive team to date. Not only has world champion Tom Boonen been almost unbeatable all season long, but the team scored a major win with Pippo Pozzato at Sanremo, and Paolo Bettini has been his usual attacking self--and frankly has been rather unlucky not to score a major victory himself. Moreover, QuickStep was one of only five teams to score points in at least half of the 20 races to date, and the only team to score points in as many as 13 races. Moreover, as many as seven different QuickStep riders have earned points, including the three mentioned above who are all in the top 13 riders overall. After QuickStep, I'd rank CSC as next most impressive, with 9 points-earning riders in 12 different races. Davitamon-Lotto has been similarly consistent (8 different riders earning points in 12 different races), although their fifth-place points total is largely due to their utter dominance of the spring's last event, the Tour de Romandie, which alone earned them 100 cumulative points. The hard-luck team of the year so far has to be Discovery Channel; nine Disco' riders have earned points and nobody was consistently stronger this spring than either Leif Hoste or George Hincapie. But it all fell apart at Paris-Roubaix when Hincapie crashed out and Hoste was denied his podium finish by a questionable disqualification at the now-infamous railroad crossing. As far as individuals, two riders have separated themselves from the pack. Boonen, as noted above, has been nothing short of phenomenal, even if his official second place at Roubaix was something of a gift. By the end of April, though, it was all about the "green bullet", Alejandro Valverde, who dominated the Ardennes classics--like DiLuca and Rebellin the last two years--and singlehandedly lifted his Illes Balears team into second place. Other noteworthy performers this spring include Euskatel's Samuel Sanchez (no major wins but consistent high results earning him third place overall), CSC's Frank Schleck and Fabian Cancellara, and Phonak's Floyd Landis, who quite simply has won every significant stage race he's entered and has to now be considered a true favorite--alongside Ivan Basso and (maybe) Valverde and Ullrich (?)--for the Tour de France in July. In the national rankings, Spain and Italy have been dominant. Twenty-nine Spanish riders, led by Valverde, have scored points--nearly a quarter of all the points available (631 out of 2530)--and they have won 4 of the 20 HC and ProTour races to date. The Italian contingent, meanwhile, have managed just a pair of wins but as many as 40 Italian riders have collected a total of 493 points, which is more than twice the total of third-place Belgium (242). Australia (187) and the USA (170) round out the top five. As for France, well, their riders collectively sit in 11th place, behind such powers as Luxembourg and Norway, and four of the five French ProTour teams rank in the bottom five. French pride, what's left of it, is being barely sustained by Credit Agricole in 11th place--a team whose results so far have almost exclusively come from the Norwegian Thor Hushovd. With the Giro dominating the second quarter of the season, it's unlikely that the French riders or teams will make a significant move up the standings anytime soon. Instead, Italy and Spain are likely to extend their dominance at least until the Tour starts in July. My Points System Explained Like many other cycling fans, I like the idea of the ProTour and what the UCI is trying to accomplish, but I'm not particularly thrilled by the actual scoring system employed. First, it simply doesn't include enough events, which is why my rankings include the continental "HC" events such as the Tour de Georgia in the USA and Milano-Torino in Italy, as well as the relatively short list of official ProTour races. Second, even after some revision for 2006, I believe the ProTour point system still overemphasizes the GC results of the major stage races and underemphasizes individual stage placings. The third big difference is that my points system gives significantly greater weight to race victories, relative to podium and other high placings, than the UCI's system. For example, while both the UCI and I award 40 points to the winner of Fleche Wallone, I give second and third place only 20 and 15 points respectively compared to the UCI's 30 and 25. Finally, the UCI ranks the Tour de France (100 points to the GC winner) slightly higher than the other two grand tours (85 points), and it likewise awards a few more points (50) to the winners of the "classics" such as Sanremo and Roubaix than to the winners of the semi-classics such as Amstel Gold and Fleche Wallone (40). While I recognize that both the Tour and the old classics carry more prestige among fans and riders alike than the other ProTour events, I also believe a season-long points system should treat races as equally as possible. Just as Formula One awards no more points for winning at Monaco than for winning at, say, Malaysia, I think all comparable ProTour cycling events should be treated as equals, too. A win is a win, no matter how old or steeped in tradition a particular race may be. Here are the details of my system: Grand Tours: 100 points to the GC winner, 50 and 35 to second and third, with points available down to 15th place. Stage victories worth 25 points, with points available down to 10th place. And 30 points available to the winners of both the KOM and sprint/points jerseys. Other ProTour races: 40, 20, and 15 points to the podium finishers of both the one-day races and stage-race GCs. Lesser points available down to 10 places. For the stage races, each stage win is worth 15 points, escalating down to 6 places. UCI HC races: 10 points to the winner (down to five places) for one-day races and stage-race GCs. 5 points (down to three places) for stage victories. So, how do my rider rankings compare to the official ProTour rankings, at least so far? No difference at the top, but some pretty significant discrepancies below. Floyd Landis scores higher on my list since I count the Tour de Georgia (but not the Tour of California!), while Michael Boogerd, whose perennial non-winning podium place at Amstel is discounted in my system, stands in only 27th place on my table. My top 10: Alejandro Valverde 180 Tom Boonen 137 Samuel Sanchez 79 Cadel Evans 71 Alessandro Petacchi 67 Floyd Landis 66 Thor Hushovd 65 Frank Schleck 65 Fabian Cancellara 65 Alberto Contador Velasco 62 the UCI's top 10: VALVERDE BELMONTE Alejandro 178 BOONEN Tom 129 BALLAN Alessandro 105 SCHLECK Frank 100 SINKEWITZ Patrik 90 SANCHEZ GONZALEZ Samuel 89 CANCELLARA Fabian 84 BOOGERD Michael 75 PETACCHI Alessandro 72 JAKSCHE Jörg 72