Although Pogacar was unable to recapture the Tour de France title from Vingegaard as hoped, he delivered the best classics season of his career. The 25-year-old not only won two monuments, the Tour of Flanders and the Tour of Lombardy, but was also the best at the Fleche Wallonne and the Amstel Gold Race. He finished third on the podium at the E3 Prize and narrowly missed out on fourth at Milan-San Remo.
The top 10 of the 2023 UCI world rankings
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates/Slovenia) 7695.86 points
- Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma/Denmark) 6304.07
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step/Belgium) 5631.71
- Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma/Slovenia) 5603.36
- Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma/Belgium) 4762
- Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek/Denmark) 4606.14
- Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck/Netherlands) 4163
- Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates/Great Britain) 4007, 86
- Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck/Belgium) 3912
- Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates/Portugal) 3110.62
In total, Pogacar collected 4498 points in the one-day races - almost 700 more than Mathieu van der Poel, who also won two monuments with Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix. The two also lead the separate UCI one-day rankings. Ahead of Wout van Aert, who only won E3 of the bigger races, but otherwise finished in the top positions almost everywhere he started.
The top 10 of the 2023 UCI world rankings - one-day races
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates/Slovenia) 4498 points
- Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck/Netherlands) 3868
- Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma/Belgium) 3650
- Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek/Denmark) 2798
- Arnaud De Lie (Lotto Dstny/Belgium) 2634
- Marc Hirschi (UAE Team Emirates/Switzerland) 2299
- Christophe Laporte (Jumbo-Visma/France) 2046
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step/Belgium) 2045
- Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck/Belgium) 2011
- Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ/France) 1883
In the stage race rankings, Pogacar only finished fourth, ahead of Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Evenepoel. The Dane collected all of his 6304.07 points in stage races, mainly by winning the Tour and finishing second in the Vuelta. However, he also filled his account with victories at the Criterium du Dauphine and the Tour of the Basque Country as well as third place at Paris-Nice. Vingegaard did not compete at all in one-day races this season.
The top 10 of the 2023 UCI world rankings - stage races
- Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma/Denmark) 6304.07 points
- Primoz Roglic (Jumbo-Visma/Slovenia) 4783.36
- Remco Evenepoel (Soudal - Quick Step/Belgium) 3586.71
- Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates/Slovenia) 3197.86
- Adam Yates (UAE Team Emirates/Great Britain) 3157.86
- Joao Almeida (UAE Team Emirates/Portugal) 3028.62
- Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma/USA) 2612.5
- Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla/Great Britain) 2288.29
- Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious/Spain) 1999.62
- Thibaut Pinot (Groupama-FDJ/France) 1925
Pogacar for the third time
However, as Pogacar proved to be the more complete rider and also collected points for the Tour classification by finishing second in the Tour and winning Paris-Nice, he ultimately secured a clear victory in the overall standings. For the third time in a row. And with by far the most points that a rider has scored in a season since this classification was introduced in 2015.
The best German in the world rankings was Lennard Kämna (Bora-Hansgrohe). The 27-year-old finished 64th with 1182.55 points. In addition to the world rankings, the UCI also maintains continental rankings. While Pogacar won the Europe Tour, the Eritrean Henok Mulueberhan (844.75 points) from Pro Team Green Project - Bardiani CSF - Faizane won the Africa Tour Ranking just ahead of his compatriot Biniam Girmay, making him the best pro on the continent. The Asia Tour Ranking was secured by the Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko (Astana Qazaqstan, 1485.29 points) with a huge lead over the Mongolian Jambaljamts Sainbayar from the continental team Terengganu Polygon Cycling.
The US Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss (Jumbo-Visma, 2612.5 points) won the American ranking ahead of his compatriot Neilson Powless (EF Education - EasyPost), in Oceania the Australian Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck, 2043.25 points) was ahead of the Australian Bora pro Jai Hindley.
The UCI points system
The UCI's points system is extremely complex. It was revamped at the start of the season in order to give more important races not only prestige, but also greater importance in terms of points.
The Tour de France stands above all other races. The overall winner receives 1300 points, the runner-up 1040 and the third 880. The top 60 in the overall standings are rewarded with a minimum of 15 points. Stage victories earn 210 points, the 15th in the daily classification gets five more. The winner of the mountain jersey or the points classification is rewarded in the same way as a stage winner. However, things look different at the Giro d'Italia and Vuelta Espana. While the overall winners are rewarded with 1100 points, the stage winners receive 180.
800 points are awarded for winning one of the five monuments. And, although they are all World Tour races, the winner of the Santos Tour Down Under, for example, receives more points than the winner of the Tour of the Basque Country. Winning the Cyclassics also yields more than winning the Eschborn-Frankfurt. Victories in the individual World Tour races bring between 500 and 300 points. All races in the Pro Series, on the other hand, are again scored uniformly and bring 125. The .1 and .2 events are also rewarded uniformly.
Points are also awarded for wearing the leader's jersey in all stage races and for winning national championships. However, the number of points depends on whether the respective country had at least one rider at the start of the previous World Road Race Championships.
The previous winners of the UCI World Ranking
- 2023 - Tadej Pogacar 7695.86 points
- 2022 - Tadej Pogacar 5131
- 2021 - Tadej Pogacar 5363
- 2020 - Primoz Roglic 4237
- 2019 - Primoz Roglic 4705.28
- 2018 - Alejandro Valverde 4168
- 2017 - Greg Van Avermaet 4148
- 2016 - Peter Sagen 5359
- 2015 - Alejandro Valverde 5090
