Relegation Watch 2025: Cofidis out of top 18 as Picnic-PostNL, XDS Astana gain on Giro d’Italia success

The Giro d’Italia was a boon for Picnic-PostNL and XDS Astana but a bust for Cofidis and Arkéa-B&B Hotels when it comes to the end-of-season WorldTour relegation watch.

The Giro d’Italia was the most lucrative race of the season so far, and left out three of the top teams, Lotto, who declined their automatic invitation, and Uno-X Mobility and TotalEnergies, who were not granted wildcard invitations.

Cofidis could have made up a lot of ground during the Giro d’Italia, and needed to because they started the race 33 points outside of the top 18 of the 2023-2025 UCI Team Rankings.

However, the French team had a dismal performance in the Italian Grand Tour. They scored the least of any team in the race with just 15 points for Sergio Samitier’s 52nd place in the final overall classification.

The team were also denied on home turf in the Boucles de la Mayenne, where they only managed 90 points. Meanwhile. XDS Astana won the race with Aaron Gate, further compounding Cofidis’ woes.

Cofidis did not compete in the Tour of Norway, which they might regret come October, as the Pro Series race provided a decent points haul.

Cofidis are now 183 points outside of the top 18 and will be under pressure to score points on French soil during the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de France to remain in the WorldTour in 2026.

Meanwhile, Picnic-PostNL had a decent Giro d’Italia, with a win by Casper van Uden on stage 4, as well as 11th overall by Max Poole. Romain Bardet helped the German team’s cause by scoring 130 points for second place on stage 17 and a handful more for 26th on GC, and other minor results for the team brought the total to 512 points.

They weren’t as strong as XDS Astana, however, and the Kazakh team jumped ahead of them into 17th place in the three-year rankings with a 455-point advantage on Picnic-PostNl.

XDS Astana went 1-2 on stage 16 with Christian Scaroni and Lorenzo Fortunato, and the pair reversed positions in the final mountains classification. Those feats were worth 620 points of the team’s total of 795 for the Giro.

The underdog of the Giro d’Italia, EF Education-EasyPost, may not have achieved their goal of winning the overall with Richard Carapaz, but the team had a superteam-level haul with 1,045 points, the third-most behind Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

That buoyed the team to 10th in the 2025 UCI Team Rankings and moved them back up ahead of Lotto into 11th in the three-year rankings – a far more comfortable position than what they faced in the last relegation cycle.

2025 Team Rankings – The fight for 2026 wildcards

Almost as pressing as the WorldTour relegation fight is the battle between the ProTeams – as well as teams who get relegated – for the two automatic invitations to the 2026 Grand Tours for the top ProTeams of 2025.

Lotto and Israel-Premier Tech, who lost out in the 2023 relegation race, stand to rejoin the WorldTour in 2026 if their fortunes continue on as they have over the past two seasons.

That will leave two new WorldTour teams out of the running for 2026. At the moment, Arkéa-B&B Hotels are the team who need to be concerned the most. Not only are they lagging far behind in 21st, but they are facing funding issues and had to let go of several top riders in the off-season. This has put them in an even worse position to score points.

Even more dire is their position in the 2025 rankings, however. Arkéa are 22nd this year and way behind Uno-X Mobility and Tudor Pro Cycling. They’re also behind Cofidis and Picnic-PostNL, who are also on the cusp of relegation.

Of the current ProTeams, Uno-X Mobility is over 2,000 points behind in their goal of promotion to the WorldTour, but are leading the way toward the automatic WorldTour invitations for 2026.

If Cofidis and Picnic-PostNL get relegated, the Norwegian team are in a prime position as the top ProTeam of 2025 so far. Second on the list is Tudor, who hold a slim lead on Q36.5.

Lotto, should they fail to hold onto their top 18 position, would be in a terrible spot as they are in dead last in this year’s rankings and 2,000 points behind Tudor.

2023-2025 Team Rankings

With the Dauphiné, Tour de Suisse and Tour de France coming up, the standings are by far from set in stone, but the weekly average of points gained so far this season – and over a variety of events – gives a strong hint of how the next month will go.

XDS Astana are on a path to overtake Intermarché-Wanty in the next two months of racing, should they continue on the same trajectory.

Picnic-PostNL are locked in a tight battle with Cofidis, while Uno-X Mobility and Arkéa-B&B Hotels will need a minor miracle to get into the top 18.

The German outfit lose Romain Bardet, who is retiring without racing the Tour de France, and are missing sprinter Fabio Jakobsen, out with iliac artery endofibrosis. But Bardet will have his last hurrah at the Dauphiné and race alongside the in-form Poole.

Oscar Onley will lead their team for the Tour, with stage hunters Julius van den Berg and Tobias Andresen in the mix.

Cofidis will be investing heavily in the upcoming Dauphiné and Tour de France, with riders like Dylan Teuns, Emanuel Buchmann aiming at the former and Ion Izagirre, Benjamin Thomas and Alex Aranburu for the Tour.