Examining the WorldTour rankings

After last week’s Vuelta al Pais Vasco and Paris-Roubaix, the cycling season is effectively one-third of the way through, with 10 of the 28 events comprising the 2012 UCI WorldTour now complete. Cycling fans may not obsess about the WorldTour rankings in quite the same way that, say, English football fans do about the Premier League table, but you can be sure that the riders and teams do, given that they lay down a marker for securing new contracts for the former, and provide the gateway to the commercial riches of the Grand Tours for the latter. With that in mind, here’s a quick look at the latest rankings to see who the winners and losers are so far in 2012. Continue reading