A rider who could justifiably claim to be the hardest working in the peloton has climbed the IG Markets Pro Cycling Index following a UCI WorldTour victory on home soil.
Luis Leon Sanchez (Rabobank) has moved to 23rd on the 12-month, rolling index of the world’s top 200 riders after winning the Clasica San Sebastian.
Sanchez’s latest victory took him to the top of two further, unofficial ‘podiums’: the Spaniard raced 16,409 kilometres and 105 days in the last 12 months.
He suffered dismal luck in the men’s Olympic time trial, snapping his chain with his first pedal stroke, before suffering a further mechanical, but back on home soil enjoyed better fortune.
The Clasica, ranked Tier 2 on the Index with races like Strade Bianche, is traditionally held the weekend after the Tour de France, but was put back to accommodate the London Games.
Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEDGE) continued a fine season begun with overall victory at the Tour Down Under and a career-defining win at Milan-San Remo by finishing second at the Clasica and moving from fifteenth to twelfth on the Index.
He was followed home by Belgian sprinter, Gianni Meersman (Lotto-Belisol), who jumped 76 places on the Index as a result, climbing to 96th.
The other WorldTour race last week was the Vattenfall Classics, a race suited to sprinters and with an illustrious list of previous winners, including six-time Tour de France green jersey winner, Eric Zabel, three-time maillot vert winner, Robbie McEwen, and three-time world road race champion, Oscar Freire (Katusha).
This year’s race, classified as Tier 3 on the Index, alongside events like Paris-Bruxelles and Giro del Piemonte, was won by French sprinter, Arnaud Demare (FDJ-Big Mat). The young Frenchman, under-23 world champion last year, climbs to 46th on the Index, making him his team’s highest ranked rider, above established talents like a huge achievement for a young pro. Demare beat a quality field to take the biggest win of his career. Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) winner of three stages of the Tour de France this year, finished second, helping him to crack the Index top ten.
Defending champion, Edvald Boasson Hagen (Team Sky) was another rider unable to match Demare’s pace, finishing fifth, and, as a result, not ‘defending’ the Index points gained from last year’s win. He drops six places on the Index to eighteenth.
Jeremy Roy (FDJ-Big Mat) cracks the top 200, taking 146th spot after winning a stage and finishing second overall in the Tier 4 Tour de Limousin. Yukiya Arashiro (Europcar), who won the race, enters the top 200 at 148th.
The Index looks set to change again in coming weeks with a packed calendar. The Vuelta a Espana will dominate proceedings, while the Tour of Denmark, which starts tomorrow, will see the post-Olympic return to action of Mark Cavendish.
About the IG Pro Cycling Index
The IG Markets Pro Cycling Index exists to answer a simple question: who is the best cyclist in the world? IG have teamed up with sports data experts, Opta, to produce a rolling, 12-month Index ranking the top 200 cyclists in the world based on results from 120 major international races. The ranking events are classified in four tiers within three categories, and selected by an expert panel on a consideration of prestige and importance to cycling fans.
The Index contains a number of unique features. The allocation of races does not simply follow that of the sport’s governing body, the UCI, but is based on factors including the quality of the field and its historical significance. The winner of Paris-Nice, for example, would, as a result, accrue more points than the winner of the Tour of Beijing. That said, victories attract more points than placings. Bonus points are awarded to the winners of Classiscs and the more prestigious stages of Grand Tours.
