Spain’s Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) is the number one ranked rider in the individual ranking for 2014, while his Movistar team topped the team ranking, and together they helped Spain dominate the nation ranking yet again.
Despite missing the Tour of Beijing, Valverde scored a total of 686 points. He won the Flèche Wallonne one-day Classic and the Clasica San Sebastian, was fourth overall at the Tour de France, third at the Vuelta a Espana, third in the UCI Road World Championships and second at Il Lombardia.
Meanwhile, Alberto Contador (Saxo-Tinkoff) won the Vuelta a Espana but was second behind Valverde in the final UCI WorldTour rankings with 620 points. Australia’s Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) was third with 478 points after winning Liege-Bastogne-Liege in the spring and more recently the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec and Montreal double.
Movistar was crowned the best team in the UCI WorldTour rankings. Valverde scored a huge number of points for the Spanish team, but victory depends on the points scored by the team’s best five riders. Nairo Quintana won the Giro d’Italia to play a key role in Movistar’s success, while Benat Intxausti, Jon Izagirre and Juan Jose Lobato also scored precious points.
Thanks to Gilbert’s success at the Tour of Beijing, the BMC Racing Team moved up from third to second overall in the team ranking with 1212 points. Tinkoff-Saxo was third with 1186 points.
Spain again dominated the nations ranking, ending the 2014 UCI WorldTour with 1834 points. Italy finished second with 1070 points and Belgium was third with 1006 points.
The Tour of Beijing brought down the curtain on the 2014 UCI WorldTour. The 2015 rankings and season-long race series begin in Australia with the Santos Tour Down Under between January 20-25.
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