The 18 best-performing teams have been given WorldTour licences for 2023 and are based on ranking points accumulated between 2020 and 2022, not just the previous year. Two ProTeams – the licence level below WorldTour – finished inside the top 18 through this period: Alpecin-Deceuninck and Team Arkéa–Samsic. This allowed them to successfully qualify for a WorldTour licence, which gains them automatic entry to every WorldTour race.
Their success meant the relegation of two teams: Lotto-Soudal (now Lotto-Dstny) and Israel-Premier Tech. Ranking points are awarded not just in WorldTour races but all UCI races, including World and National Championships and under-23 racing. The number of points awarded depends on the prestige of the race. For example, the Tour de France winner nets the biggest haul, 1,000 points, weeklong WorldTour stage race Volta a Catalunya 400 and oneday Classic Scheldeprijs 200.
Jumbo-Visma Netherlands
Established 1990 2022 WT wins 24 2022 UCI ranking 1
Manager Richard Plugge Bike Cervélo
IT’S BEEN A SLOW BURN OF a project, but team manager Richard Plugge has cannily built a team that’s the envy of the world. He brought in a former ski jumper (Primož Roglič), cyclocross star (Wout van Aert) and fish-factory worker (Jonas Vingegaard) and won the biggest races in the world with them, including for the first time, in 2022, the Tour de France. Having retained their key riders for 2023, they’ve shrewdly added 2022 Paris-Roubaix winner and compatriot Dylan van Baarle from rivals Ineos Grenadiers. He adds firepower to their Classics squad and ballast for their continued Grand Tour ambitions.
Wout van Aert
Jonas Vingegaard may have won the Tour de France for the
