The future of top professional cycling teams is taking shape as the WorldTour and Women's WorldTour three-year rankings now build toward the 2029 cycle.
For the first time, both men's and women's teams will be judged on three years of results—the women previously had two-year cycles. At the end of 2028, only the top 18 men's and top 15 women's teams will be eligible for the next round of three-year licences.
While it is early days in the current three-year cycle, some teams are already struggling or winless in the first three months of 2026, while others have continued to dominate the rankings.
The men's peloton has completed four WorldTour stage races and three one-day races as of March 17, and, as has been the case for years, UAE Team Emirates-XRG sit firmly atop the UCI Team Rankings with 6841.12 points, almost 2,500 clear of second-placed Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe.
So dominant is the team that they've built their tally with world champion Tadej Pogačar racing so far only one day, winning Strade Bianche. The team's depth was on display elsewhere with Isaac del Toro winning Tirreno-Adriatico, while riders like Jan Christen, António Morgado and Jay Vine have been consistently racking up points in the early season.
UAE Team Emirates also lead the team win count, having already taken 16 victories with eight different riders - Del Toro, Pogačar, Vine, Morgado, Christen, Marc Soler, Juan Sebastian Molano, and Tim Wellens.
Surprisingly, it's not Visma-Lease a Bike in third despite Jonas Vingegaard's impressive victory in Paris-Nice, but XDS-Astana, who have perfected the art of covering all of the bases. They have only nine victories compared with Red Bull and Ineos Grenadiers' ten, but have spread the points haul nicely, with 14 riders scoring more than 100 points, giving the Kazakh team the second-highest median score per rider (148), behind UAE Team Emirates (199).
Visma-Lease a Bike are 684 points behind Astana but climbed three spots after Vingegaard's Paris-Nice performances, which were worth 703.57 points (fractions thanks to the team time trial). Matteo Jorgenson is the team's top scorer with 875 points, including his second overall at Tirreno-Adriatico and results at Strade Bianche and the Faun Drôme and Ardèche Classics.
The Dutch team's early-season concerns are reflected in their median rider points haul, which is one of the lower scores at 38, on par with Uno-X Mobility and Groupama-FDJ, who are much further down the rankings. That sort of top-heavy distribution will likely change over time as the team still has quite a few riders like Wout van Aert who are yet to land a major result.
Further down the team standings are Decathlon CMA CGM, Bahrain Victorious, Jayco-AlUla, Ineos - the usual suspects - but one notable absence in the top 10 is Lidl-Trek, who are missing several key riders due to injury, including Mads Pedersen, Thibau Nys, and Mattias Skjelmose.
Also further down than they likely will be in a month is the Alpecin-Premier Tech squad. They tend to focus their efforts from mid-March onward, so it's not a surprise they're down in 21st place in the team rankings with a median rider score of 21 points.
When you have Mathieu van der Poel already on three victories for the season with eight race days completed, there's no reason to worry, and Jasper Philipsen's Nokere Koerse victory shows the team are on track.
The same absolutely cannot be said for Picnic-PostNL. The German team haven't won a single thing yet, and while they had EF Education-EasyPost for company in that category before last week, the American outfit won stages in Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico.
Picnic-PostNL are both winless and way down the rankings, in 29th place, behind XDS Astana's Development team and only barely ahead of George Hincapie's new Modern Adventure team. Their top rider, Bjoern Koerdt, has only 81 points, and the team's median score per rider is only 11 points. The team barely avoided relegation last year and have now lost Oscar Onley to Ineos and Tobias Lund Andresen to Decathlon.
Much like Astana in 2023, Picnic-PostNL will need to secure a bigger budget, formulate a cohesive recruitment plan, and go on an all-out points blitz to survive in the WorldTour, as they are already almost 1,000 points behind 18th-placed Pinarello-Q36.5.
Women's Team Rankings
The Women's WorldTour is also fully underway with two stage races and four one-day WorldTour events behind us. As mentioned earlier, the women will have a three-year relegation/promotion cycle for the first time. However, there is less concern about relegation from the Women's WorldTour because the team count has not reached the maximum of 15.
The other difference is that women's teams are smaller than men's, and only the results of the top eight riders count toward the women's team rankings as opposed to the top 20 for men, so expect the rankings to change rapidly as more top riders get into the swing of the season.
Much like last season, UAE Team ADQ have had a strong early season and sit atop the UCI Team Rankings for women with 4,649 points - 1,610 more than FDJ United-SUEZ - thanks in large part to Elisa Longo Borghini's win in the UAE Tour and Karlijn Swinkels' victory in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
SD Worx-ProTime are third with 2,272 points, rising seven places as Anna van der Breggen scored second in Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
FDJ has already amassed nine victories - four by Demi Vollering and Ally Wollaston and one by Elise Chabbey in Strade Bianche - but surprisingly, the super team have been eclipsed by Laboral Kutxa-Fundación Euskadi, who have 10 wins, eight of which they picked up racing in El Salvador in January.
Of the 14 Women's WorldTour squads, only Visma-Lease a Bike, Uno-X Mobility and Picnic-PostNL have yet to win a race, but not for lack of trying. Laboral are the only team out of seven ProTeams to earn a victory this year.
Like their male counterparts, Visma are waiting for their top riders to get up to speed. Marianne Vos and Pauline Ferrand-Prevot just launched their seasons this past week, so riders like Femke De Vries and Viktória Chladoňová have been filling in the gaps.
Uno-X Mobility usually punch above their weight and have had strong showings from Mie Bjørndal-Ottestad.
Picnic-PostNL have earned a couple of top results: Josie Nelson was a close second in the Cadel Evans Road Race and added two stage podiums in the Tour Down Under, but like the men's team, they have lost important riders - Charlotte Kool to Fenix-Premier Tech, Megan Jastrab to UAE Team ADQ and Marta Cavalli to retirement.
Lidl-Trek also have two fewer veteran riders after the retirements of Lizzie Deignan and Ellen van Dijk, and both teams are still adjusting to those changes.
Yet Lidl-Trek have plenty of young riders coming up and seasoned talent to lead the way, so we don't expect them to remain in the basement for long. However, it's surprising that last year's fourth-best team are currently 11th.
All of the men's and women's teams are about to embark on one of the busiest times of the season, with Milan-San Remo signalling the opening of the major Spring Classics. By the end of April, the team rankings will look quite different.
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Get unlimited access to our unrivalled 2026 Spring Classics coverage with a Cyclingnews subscription. We'll bring you breaking news, reports, and analysis from some of the biggest races on the calendar, including Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders. Find out more.
