Who’s at risk? UCI relegation battle after the Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse

At the end of an exciting three weeks of racing around Italy, the UCI WorldTour relegation battle took yet more twists and turns. At the start of the 2025 season, it would have been difficult to anticipate that we would have such a closely contested battle between multiple teams at the end of the Giro d’Italia. But with the Tour de France on the horizon, that was the exact situation, and we can expect the fight to go all the way to the wire.

We take a look at the current situation and how the month of June, after key races such as the Critérium du Dauphiné and Tour de Suisse has affected the teams who are currently caught up in the relegation battle ahead of the Tour in July.

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For a long time, Intermarché-Wanty didn't seem to be in imminent danger, but things are starting to look worrying for the Belgian team. At the Giro, the team comfortably gained the least amount of UCI points, with a small total of 190. The lack of momentum has continued into the month of June as the team has had little to shout about once more.

It’s been a difficult 2025 on the whole for the team, with only two victories in their pocket. Like Cofidis, they lack the momentum of XDS Astana and need to pick up some solid results to avoid being seriously dragged into the relegation scrap. The gap between themselves and the teams nearest behind continues to close, and it puts pressure on the Belgian team to have a strong Tour de France. 

We have seen that they are capable of said performance, as we saw twelve months ago, as Biniam Girmay claimed three stage wins and the points classification. We haven’t seen the best of the Eritrean star so far in 2025, but the situation was similar heading into last year’s Tour, so the team will be hoping that Girmay can once again step up on the big occasion. A 6th place finish at the Copenhagen Sprint with Hugo Page was the most beneficial result for the team from a UCI points perspective in the month of June, whilst Huub Artz finished 6th on GC at the Tour of Norway.

XDS Astana continued their positive trajectory throughout the 2025 Giro d’Italia in pursuit of their elusive WorldTour survival. At the start of the season, it looked improbable that the Kazakhstan team would be able to save itself from what looked like an inevitable relegation from the UCI WorldTour. However, rather than sink and accept their fate, the team have rallied together throughout 2025 so far, and the Giro was a prime example of how well they are performing as a collective.

The momentum has since slowed a bit, but XDS Astana have placed themselves in a really strong position ahead of the Tour de France, which looked extremely unlikely 6 months ago. The only victories in the last month came via Aaron Gate, who won stage 2 and the general classification at the Boucles de la Mayenne

At the Tour de Suisse, there were top 10 stage finishes for Davide Ballerini, Clément Champoussin, and Nicola Conci, and Champoussin finished 10th in the general classification, but there was not much to talk about beyond that. The same can be said for the Critérium du Dauphiné, where there were top 10 stage finishes for Yevginiy Federov and a runner-up position on stage 3 for Sergio Higuita from the breakaway.

Overall, the mood will still be very positive in the XDS Astana camp, but the team will need to make sure that they don't slump in form ahead of the biggest race of the season, the Tour de France. As it stands, their fate is in their own hands, and that's always a strong position to be in.

At the end of the Giro d’Italia, things were looking positive for Picnic PostNL as they showed that they were still capable of landing key results at the big races, as Casper van Uden won stage 4, while Max Poole had four top-10 stage finishes and ended 11th in the general classification. In total, Picnic PostNL gained 1,069 points from the Giro d’Italia. On the surface, this left them marginally above the trapdoor, but in reality, they seemed to have much more momentum than the majority of the teams around them.

The last month has been once again positive for the team, with the standout rider being Oscar Onley. The talented British rider thrived at the Tour de Suisse, winning stage 5, finishing 3rd in GC and claiming 5 podium stage finishes along the way. This performance is another huge boost to Picnic PostNL, delivering in another WorldTour stage race, and sees Onley head to the Tour de France full of confidence in achieving more success.

Tobias Lund Andresen has contributed well to the team’s points tally with a 5th at the Copenhagen Sprint, 4th on GC at the Tour of Norway, and 2nd at the Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl. It’s easier said than done, but if Picnic PostNL can continue their current trajectory into the Tour de France and beyond, the Dutch team should be more than safe from potential relegation.

There hadn’t been too much to shout about throughout the month beyond a steady 11th place finish on GC at the Critérium du Dauphiné from Emanuel Buchmann until the inaugural Copenhagen Sprint. There, Alexis Renard delivered a superb performance to finish a surprising second place behind Jordi Meeus (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe). Being ranked a WorldTour-level event, Renard racked up a whopping 250 UCI points for his efforts, and Stanisław Aniołkowski finished 9th and claimed 60 points himself to boot.

Despite a successful Copenhagen Sprint, the French team remain just below the safety line, but they remain within touching distance of safety. Based on current momentum, Cofidis are unlikely to topple XDS Astana or Picnic PostNL, but if they are able to find the wind in their sails or the other teams falter, they are within striking distance.

Cofidis need to turn their fortunes around quickly and will be looking to their home race, the Tour de France, to try to make the difference. They’ll be hoping to deliver a similar level of performance to the 2023 edition that saw them win two stages via Victor Lafay and Ion Izagirre. This would significantly help the team in their bid for WorldTour survival. As it stands, they are in a very precarious situation.

The plucky underdog Norwegian team have seemed to have mastered the concept of progression as they seem to be improving year-on-year. At their current level, Uno-X Mobility are continuously performing like a WorldTour team, and this is starting to reflect in the UCI rankings as the team is on the cusp of climbing into the top ranks of cycling on a full-time basis. 2025 has been another year of firsts for the team, with the crowning moment being Søren Wærenskjold's stunning upset victory at Omloop het Nieuwsblad back at the start of March. This marked the first WorldTour cobbled classic victory for the team, and it doesn't seem out of the question that they can fight for more victories of this magnitude soon. 

The last month has proven to be another successful period for the team, with talented talisman Tobias Halland Johannessen finding new gears and reaching another level of performance, after much has been expected of him ever since he won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2021. Johannessen finished fifth on GC at the Dauphiné, among esteemed competition, whilst also scoring three stage positions of eighth or higher. Heading into the Tour de France, Uno-X Mobility will rightly believe that Johannessen is capable of either winning a stage, fighting for the mountain classification, or finishing in the top 10 in GC, or perhaps a combination. 

Brother Anders also has done the team wonders in the month of June by winning the general classification at the Tour of Slovenia which scored the team plenty of UCI points and also some podium stage finishes as an added bonus. Another highlight for the team was Rasmus Tiller’s 2nd place finish at the Duracell Dwars door het Hageland, the 3rd consecutive year that the team achieved a podium at the race.

The current gap of nearly 2,000 points to Cofidis, who are still below the trapdoor themselves, means that it remains a tough task that Uno-X will be able to climb into the WorldTour before the end of this season. However, this just goes to show how positive the future is for the team, and unlike the others around them, they didn't even participate in the recent Giro d'Italia. The team will head to the Tour de France with the ambition to land a maiden stage win at the biggest race of them all, and it would be brave to bet against them.

The French team look resigned to their fate, as they currently sit over 3,000 below the safety line heading into the Tour de France.

However, the team can look back on the post-Giro d’Italia positively, most importantly due to Kévin Vauquelin’s fine ride at the Tour de Suisse to finish second on GC. Vauquelin led the race heading into the final stage’s mountain time trial but ultimately could not hold off a rampant João Almeida. Nonetheless, it was a great performance from Vauquelin throughout, who looks likely to have garnered enough interest from other teams to stay in the WorldTour in 2026, even if his current team doesn’t.

Cristián Rodríguez has been another shining light for the team during this period as the underrated Spanish climber won the Mercan’Tour Classic Alpes-Maritimes at the end of May before a second place at the inaugural Andorra MoraBanc Clássica on June 22. There was also a win for fellow Spaniard Raúl García Pierna in the opening individual time trial at La Route d’Occitanie. However, as much as these results are good for confidence, they aren’t particularly useful in their fight for survival, as these races do not award nearly as many points as the WorldTour level races. This is demonstrated by Arnaud Démare’s fourth place at the Copenhagen Sprint, which, from a survival perspective, scored better than the victories for Rodríguez and García Pierna.

It’s fair to say that an unprecedented Summer and Autumn will be required from the team to stand a chance of WorldTour survival, and even then, it will also depend on what the teams above them achieve over the next few months.