In checking the latest UCI points rankings for the XC racers, we noticed that one of the UCI races held this past weekend caused some shakeups in the rankings. (You can see the graphic below, that is shown on xcodata.com.)
Jenny Rissveds’ points lead ahead of Alessandra Keller in the Elite Women’s ranking is now only six points after this past weekend’s races.
Also, America’s Bjorn Riley moved up 15 places in the latest rankings thanks to his win of a mountain bike race in Austria this past weekend.
Here are the new rankings for the Elite Women and Men, as shown at xcodata.com:
UCI ELITE WOMEN, POINTS RANKINGS, 4/28/26
UCI ELITE MEN’S POINTS RANKINGS, 4/28/26
Below, you can see that Bjorn Riley moved up 15 places in the rankings, from 57th to 42nd place, after earning 100 points with his XCO race win in Austria this past weekend:
SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT THE UPCOMING WORLD CUP RACES IN KOREA
- Flying to Korea is expensive. As a result, there might be fewer international racers in attendance than normal.
- However, that will probably be offset to some degree because it’s the first World Cup event of this year.
- The first World Cup of the year tends to attract most of the title chasers, so there might be more racers going to Korea than there would be if the event were held later in the season. By then, most of the teams will know if their riders have a shot at a title or not.
- If any riders don’t have a shot at a high finish in the series, the financial people behind those teams might decide to save money and cut down on the number of riders going to the race.
- Riders’ racing performances can be negatively affected by traveling to different time zones.
- Since most of the top racers come from Europe and the U.S, they’ll both be adversely affected by racing at what would probably be a seven hour or greater time-change difference when traveling to South Korea.
- For racers coming from Paris, France, they’ll be racing seven hours earlier than they would be if they were racing at home.
- Riders coming from California will be racing 16 hours earlier than they are used to racing at home in California (which will feel like 8 hours later) than they would be if they were racing at home in California.
- Racers from the Eastern U.S. will be racing 11 hours later in the day than they would be if they were racing at home. Imagine how you would feel if you had to race a World Cup event after midnight.
- The top racers from Australia and New Zealand could be at an advantage, since Brisbane, Australia is only one hour ahead of Seoul, South Korea, which will likely prove to be an advantage for the racers who are going from Australia and New Zealand to Korea.
We recently learned that Paola Pezzo changed her training times in Italy to better prepare herself for racing in the Atlanta Olympics in the U.S. in 1996. Knowing that the time difference could put her at a disadvantage, Pezzo changed her training times to be closer to the race time in the Olympics, so Pezzo put in her hardest training at night in Italy, so that she would be in peak form when she raced in Atlanta. It must have worked. She won the gold medal in the ’96 Olympics.