It comes as no surprise that Tour de France and Giro d'Italia champion Tadej Pogachar and his team, UAE Team Emirates, sit atop the UCI world rankings following the Slovenian's victory in Nice on Sunday.

Pogachar has been the world's number one rider since 2021, with two Grand Tour victories, six stage wins each in the Giro and Tour, and wins in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Strade Bianche, and Il Lombardia, and is currently 12 months points ranking.

Remco Evenpole (Sourdal-Quick-Step) has moved into second place in the overall individual standings, ahead of Jonas Vingegaard (Vimaris-a-Bike). Evenepoel, who finished third in the Tour de France, won stages 7 and 3 of last year's Vuelta a España and the UCI Road World Championships time trial to top the standings.

Vingegaard finished second in the Tour de France and is in third place, ahead of one-stage winners Jasper Philipsen and Mathieu van der Pol (both from Alpecin-Desseuninck).

Primoš Roglic (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), who abandoned the Tour after two crashes, remains in the top 10 thanks to his overall win at the Criterium du Dauphiné. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Alexandre Brasov (Red Bull-Bohra-Hansgrohe), Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates), and Wout Van Aert (Vimaris-a-Bike) round out the top 10.

UAE Team Emirates also tops the 2024 team standings, 13,438 points ahead of Visma Lease a Bike and Ineos Grenadiers.

Soudal-Quick-Step was second at the end of the 2020-2022 rankings, but has fallen behind as they focus on building their Grand Tour team for the Evenpère and losing their Classics advantage. His post-Tour de France 2023-2024 ranking was 8th and 4th, but this year he is 6th.

Lidl Trek has made great progress since finishing ninth in the final round of promotion and relegation. Their ranking this year is 4th, and their ranking through two seasons is 5th.

Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale is another major success story. This French team finished 18th last season, but this year they have recovered to 5th, bringing their two-year ranking to 11th.

The bigger battle, however, is taking place at the other end of the rankings, in the dreaded “relegation zone.”

The next promotion/relegation round of the UCI World Tour comes at the end of the 2025 season.

Teams must meet the sporting criteria of being in the top 18 of the three-year UCI team rankings every three years, as well as all other financial, administrative, and ethical criteria to obtain a World Tour license.

Lotto Doustny and Israel Premiatek, who lost their World Tour status at the end of 2022 due to this rule, are currently 9th and 10th in the 2024 season, respectively, and 9th and 13th in combined points for 2023 and 2024.

The peloton is now halfway through the points race for the 2023-2025 rankings, with Astana Kazakstan and Arkea B&B Hotels currently in danger of relegation.

Astana is 21st in both this year's and the two-year ranking, well below the top 18 needed to remain in the sport's top class. The Kazakhstan team is 3,364 points ahead of DSM-Filmenig-Post NL, which is 18th in the 2023-2024 rankings. For reference, Mark Cavendish's historic record-setting Tour de France stage win was only 210 points.

Uno X, who is aiming to make the World Tour, still has some work to do to reach that goal. This year they are in 18th place, a significant improvement over last year's 21st place. However, their combined results only move them up to 20th place, just below the promotion line.

There is still plenty of time for teams to scramble up the rankings, but some are in danger of relegation, always falling below 18th place.

Arkéa-B&B Hotels was ranked 18th on the World Tour in 2022, but has dropped to 19th in 2023 and has not moved up in the rankings in two years. It is 1,554 points behind Team DSM-Filmenig-Post NL in 18th place.

Team DSM was 16th in the 2020-2022 standings, but dropped to 17th in 2023. They are 19th so far this season and 18th in total, but are 595 points behind 17th-place Cofidis and still have a comfortable advantage over Arkea.

Cofidis, on the other hand, is 2,061 points ahead of Arkea and has been in 17th place for the past two years.