Winners, Losers, and 'What-ifs' - A statistical review of the Spring Monuments

We selected the highest placed finisher for all eighteen WorldTour teams and the three ProTeams (Cofidis, Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team and Tudor Pro Cycling Team) that featured in all four Monuments.

Two statistical markers were used to analyse the results more closely.

The mean represents the average finishing position across the four races, illustrating consistency and the ability to compete at the front.

The median reflects the typical level of performance by identifying the middle result, offering a clearer picture for teams whose averages may have been affected by a single off day or misfortune.

Context remains important. Several teams were missing key riders or saw leaders arrive below peak condition due to injury or illness.

Equally, the Monuments do not define the entire spring, with results across other Classics and stage races often telling a different story. This is a focused look at performance in cycling’s biggest one day races.

It doesn’t take any data to realise that UAE Team Emirates-XRG have had a near-perfect Monuments campaign. Tadej Pogačar was a sprint finish against Wout van Aert from becoming the first rider to win four Monuments in a single season, with Il Lombardia (a race he has won for a record five consecutive editions) still remaining to accomplish this feat.

That wasn’t to be the case in the end, meaning Pogačar and UAE will have to wait for another year for the Hell of the North, but in the meantime, they will reflect on one of the greatest spring Monument campaigns in the history of the sport. 

Pogačar enhanced his status in the exclusive club of riders to win three Monuments in the season, a club that features himself, having achieved the feat for the second year running, and Eddy Merckx, who did so four times in 1969, 1971, 1972 and 1975.

Pogačar secured an elusive victory at Milan-Sanremo in iconic fashion before securing routine victories against elite competition at the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. 

These performances and results are reflected in a quite frankly absurd set of numbers. UAE’s mean of 1.3 underlines Pogačar’s absolute consistency of being in contention for victory in every Monument. 

Even more impressive is the median of 1.0, which indicates that winning is all but a normal state for Pogačar and UAE. With the World Champion now second in the all-time list of Monument wins on thirteen, six behind Eddy Merckx, this hardly comes as a surprise.

Additionally, with all the external factors and elements of bad luck that can quickly hinder or even derail a team’s spring, UAE’s statistics are even more impressive. 

Pogačar certainly had his fair share of incidents, from his crash at Milan-Sanremo to his untimely mechanicals at Paris-Roubaix, but the World Champion was still able to win three out of four and take second in the other Monument.

Naturally, these statistics only take into account the finishes of Pogačar, but there were many more stories to be told within the UAE camp. With the absences of Tim Wellens and Jhonatan Narvaéz due to injury, Florian Vermeersch stepped up as one of the most impressive riders of the entire spring. 

The Belgian supported Pogačar to victories at Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo and the Tour of Flanders. The Belgian also finished 7th in Flanders and secured 3rd-place finishes at Omloop Nieuwsblad and the E3 Saxo Classic.

Meanwhile, Benoît Cosnefroy also rose to the fore, shining in his natural playground at the Ardennes, securing 3rd at Brabantse Pijl and the Amstel Gold Race, as well as 4th at Flèche Wallonne. The Frenchman also produced the all-important final lead-out for Pogačar’s monster acceleration on the Côte de la Redoute at Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

One of the most special moments in modern cycling was seeing Wout van Aert finally get his hands on an elusive cobbled Monument after so many setbacks and being written off by plenty. 

Of course, beating Tadej Pogačar on the Roubaix velodrome was the iconic moment, but there’s a lot more beneath the surface that makes that moment even more significant for the Belgian star and Visma | Lease a Bike.

Flashback to 2 January at the snowy Zilvermeercross in Mol, and the picture looked damning. Van Aert suffered a crash while racing alongside Mathieu van der Poel and sustained a fractured ankle. 

For a rider whose spring campaigns have so often been derailed by misfortune, the injury threatened to ruin his 2026 chances before they had even begun. Yet, he remained optimistic, adopting a refreshed approach that saw him consistently build form with 3rd at Sanremo, and 4th in Flanders, indications he was on the right track. And so it proved to be on the Roubaix velodrome.

One rider who doesn’t feature on the first table for Visma, but who also enjoyed a very strong spring, is Christophe Laporte. After an illness-plagued 2025 that he described as the hardest time of his career, the Frenchman’s return to the front of the peloton was key for Visma and proved to be an important dynamic at Paris-Roubaix. 

The former European champion was seriously consistent, finishing 16th at Milan-San Remo, 7th at E3, 3rd at Gent-Wevelgem, 7th at Dwars, 9th at Flanders, and 5th at Roubaix.

The Ardennes campaign was also under threat when Matteo Jorgenson fractured his collarbone at Amstel. However, Ben Tulett stepped up, despite his own injury concerns, to finish 3rd at Flèche Wallonne and a solid 13th at Liège.

The statistics reflect a campaign of high-level recovery. While the team’s Mean of 5.3 was slightly skewed by a 13th-place finish at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, their Median of 3.5 highlights their true competitive level. Ultimately, the stats are secondary to the main story point, Van Aert finally claiming the cobbled Monument that had eluded him for years, providing one of the defining moments of the 2026 season.

Alpecin-Premier Tech have manufactured themselves as a lean, mean Classics-winning machine, and 2026 was another year where the team stood towards the top of the pack. 

Top 10 finishes in all four Monuments, three with Mathieu van der Poel, and an impressive 4th place finish at Liège-Bastogne-Liège for the multidisciplined star Emiel Verstrynge illustrate their ability to compete on all fronts.

This is also supported by the fact that the team ranked 2nd for Mean position (4.5) and 3rd for Median (4.0). On paper, this statistical brilliance looks like a campaign that most teams would snap your hand off for. However, Alpecin-Premier Tech have become accustomed to scoring Monument victories more than any other team but UAE.

Van der Poel has been a prolific winner in the Spring in recent years, scoring two Monument victories in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025, and made a strong start to this season, indicating a similar outcome could be on the cards.

Victories at Omloop Nieuwsblad, E3 Saxo Classic and two stages at Tirreno-Adriatico is still an impressive haul. Additionally, victory for Jasper Philipsen at In Flanders Fields - From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (Gent-Wevelgem) was also an important moment. But for a rider of Van der Poel’s stature, the moments of what-ifs will be a sticking point from this Classics campaign. 

Injuring his wrist and being uncharacteristically distanced on the Poggio at Milan-Sanremo was an initial setback, and after being denied victory in Flanders by Pogačar, the importance of Paris-Roubaix increased tenfold. However, despite most of the main contenders suffering misfortune during the Hell of the North, nobody will feel harder done than Van der Poel. 

A double mechanical on the Trouée d'Arenberg put paid to his chances of victories, but despite the setback, Van der Poel still battled his way to a valiant 4th, just 15 seconds behind Van Aert and Pogačar.

Despite Alpecin’s impressive consistency of featuring towards the front, the lack of a Monument victory for Van der Poel, particularly with the bad luck in Northern France, will surely have left a feeling of ‘what if?’

Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe entered 2026 with a massive injection of investment and ambition, with the arrival of Remco Evenepoel among others, and the statistics suggest the team made an immediate step up.

While their Mean of 7.8 reflects a low-key 19th at Milan-Sanremo with Laurence Pithie, their Median of 4.5 shows their typical race level was that of a genuine podium contender across the board. 

This marks a sharp contrast to the 2025 season, where the team's best Monument result was a seventh-place finish at Liège–Bastogne–Liège via Daniel Martínez, the only race where they achieved a top 10 finish.

The defining story of the spring for the team was Remco Evenepoel's long-awaited debut at the Tour of Flanders. Facing the cobbled Monument for the first time, Evenepoel secured an impressive 3rd place, the team's first Monument podium since 2019. There was plenty to like beyond Evenepoel’s performance in Flanders.

Tim van Dijke enjoyed arguably the strongest spring of his career so far, including a 2nd place at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, while Mick van Dijke sealed 6th at Paris-Roubaix. Meanwhile, Gianni Vermeersch and Pithie also impressed during the spring, showing the team’s strength in depth.

Following his cobbled success, Evenepoel was victorious at the Amstel Gold Race, a positive sign ahead of Liège. However, at La Doyenne, Evenepoel was a distant third behind Pogačar and Seixas, but he still produced a powerful sprint to take the final podium spot. 

Considering that the German team hadn’t podiumed a Monument for six seasons, to pick up two via Evenepoel in Flanders and Liège still shows the team has made a step up. 

But with the ambition of Evenepoel and the growing ambition of the team, the aim for next season will be to take the next step and achieve an elusive Monument victory.

With the departure of Remco Evenepoel last winter, Soudal Quick-Step outlined their ambitions to return to their Classics roots for 2026 after some mixed spring campaigns in recent years. 

Something that stands out straight away is the fact that the Belgian side were one of only three teams alongside UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Alpecin-Premier Tech to finish in the top ten of all four Monuments this spring.

This illustrates the team's ability to compete on all fronts, and this was spearheaded by new signing Jasper Stuyven, who enjoyed yet another strong and impressive spring. This culminated in a 3rd-place finish for Stuyven at Paris-Roubaix, the team’s highest finish since 2019, when Philippe Gilbert won, and Yves Lampaert rounded out the podium.

Soudal Quick-Step's mean and median, being 6.5, marks them as a reliable high-performer across the spring. Importantly, this is a complete contrast to last season, as the team’s highest placed finish in any of the opening four Monuments was a 26th place finish at Milan-Sanremo with Casper Pedersen.

The team also had to deal with the setback of Tim Merlier missing the opening stages of the campaign, but the former European Champion has bounced back with a bang, winning Scheldeprijs for the third year running, before adding the Ronde van Limburg.

Based on all of this, it feels that Soudal Quick-Step have taken a significant leap in the right direction as they look to re-establish themselves towards the top of the Classics tree, with the next step being challenging directly for victories.

While some observers might categorise Lidl-Trek’s spring as a disappointment, the stats show a campaign of high-level consistency in the face of plenty of adversity. With a Mean of 8.3 and a Median of 6.0, the team remained a permanent fixture in each Monument, led by the defiant return of Mads Pedersen.

Pedersen’s 2026 spring was almost over before it began. A crash on the opening stage of the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana in February, where he suffered a fractured left wrist and right collarbone, threatened to derail his Classics campaign. Yet a defiant Pedersen returned with a 4th-place finish at Milan-Sanremo. The former World Champion faced another setback with a bout of illness, which stopped him from defending his Gent-Wevelgem title. 

Returning for the cobbled Monuments, Pedersen was in the mix on both occasions, finishing 5th at Flanders and 7th at Roubaix. Though these results don’t match the podium finishes from last year, Pedersen’s fightback was still very inspiring. 

While Mads Pedersen’s resilience defined the cobbled campaign, the focus for Lidl-Trek’s Ardennes block was built around the defending Amstel Gold champion, Mattias Skjelmose and new signing Juan Ayuso. However, the Spanish rider was ruled out due to a viral infection, leaving Skjelmose to lead solo, and he certainly stepped up.

The Dane came close to a repeat success at Amstel, finishing 2nd in a two-man sprint against Remco Evenepoel, before taking 5th at Flèche Wallonne.

Skjelmose’s momentum carried into Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where he once again proved himself as a protagonist, being the rider closest to Pogačar and Seixas on the Côte de la Redoute. The Dane then also attacked on the Côte de la Roche-aux-Faucons, another demonstration of his strength, but ultimately finished 17th in the end, a result that didn’t necessarily reflect his impact on this race.

Ultimately, while Lidl-Trek didn’t achieve the Monument podiums of 2025, they still remained one of the most consistent teams, and some fine margins and misfortune mean that the campaign doesn't stand out as much on paper as it otherwise could have.

While UAE, Visma and Alpecin naturally took the headlines this spring, Bahrain-Victorious quietly put together a very solid and efficient campaign. 

Often overlooked when it comes to the Classics, the team were very close to finishing in the top ten of all four Monuments, only missing out at Paris-Roubaix, where Alec Segaert still took a strong 16th. 

In fact, the Belgian was one of the standout riders for the team throughout the spring, scoring victory at the GP Denain and being caught inside the final kilometre at In Flanders Fields - From Middelkerke to Wevelgem (Gent-Wevelgem).

The team’s strength across the board stood out. Whether it was Edoardo Zambanini at Milan-Sanremo, Matej Mohorič at the Tour of Flanders, or Pello Bilbao at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Bahrain riders were able to find top ten results in the biggest of races. 

This consistency across the board saw the team end with a mean position of 10.0 and a median of 9.0, ranking 7th and 8th in each metric, a solid outcome. 

Since the arrival of Decathlon as a title sponsor, Decathlon CMA CGM have enjoyed two of the most successful years in recent times, and it's fair to argue that they have never been in a stronger position than right now. 

This is mainly supported by the meteoric rise of the teenage sensation Paul Seixas, who recently finished 2nd at Liège-Bastogne-Liège on debut just days after winning Flèche Wallonne.

Interestingly, Decathlon is one of the few teams whose mean of 9.0 is actually superior to their Median of 10.5. This is unsurprising as it illustrates that the team has a very high peak, which is courtesy of Seixas. 

While the team are already very consistent across the board, finishing in or on the cusp of the top ten regularly, when they have someone with the talent of Seixas to call upon, this means the ceiling for the team is higher than most others. 

For Ineos Grenadiers, the 2026 spring can be looked at in different ways. Their results in the four Monuments resulted in a Mean of 27.5 and a Median of 27.0, placing them 19th and 18th in the rankings, well below where the British team would have been expected to place. Despite this, their difficult Monument run doesn’t tell the story of their season as a whole.

When Filippo Ganna took an impressive victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen, Ineos would have been hoping for a big result for the Italian at Paris-Roubaix, and this looked like it was on the cards. This wasn’t to be the case when Ganna was ruled out of contention, having suffered an ill-timed mechanical.

However, the "Monument struggle" narrative was disrupted by a resurgent Egan Bernal at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Fresh off riding the Tour of the Alps, Bernal finished 5th, a positive indication for the Colombian star and the British team ahead of the Giro d’Italia.

Crucially, it is important to look beyond the one-day rankings to judge the team's overall success. While the Monuments didn’t go to plan in terms of results, Ineos currently boasts 17 victories this season, the most that they have had at this stage of a season since 2022.

Ineos are still firing in plenty of races, but there will be a definite ambition to have more success in the Monuments next spring, as a team with standards as high as the British side.

For a ProTeam, Pinarello-Q36.5 have been consistently performing above their station, spearheaded by Tom Pidcock. The British star was electric at Milan-San Remo, missing out by millimetres on winning his first-ever Monument.

This high level was supported across the cobbled campaign, with Aimé De Gendt and Brent Van Moer scoring solid top-20 finishes in Flanders and Roubaix, respectively. 

However, misfortune struck when Pidcock crashed down a ravine at the Volta a Catalunya, putting his Ardennes campaign in jeopardy. Missing Amstel and Flèche, Pidcock managed to return ahead of La Doyenne after a solid week at the Tour of the Alps, where he won a stage.

He was honest in tempering his expectations given his time out, but unfortunately, we didn’t get to find out if he had the legs to be in the mix due to another moment of misfortune, this time suffering an untimely mechanical. 

Without the double blow for Pidcock, it’s possible that the team’s mean and median could have been even higher than the already solid 17.8 and 15.5, a solid outcome nonetheless, which sees them place 11th and 10th in the rankings, beating many WorldTour teams.

Picnic PostNL have had a difficult 2026 campaign so far, and the stats demonstrate that, as the Dutch team sits bottom of the rankings in terms of both mean and median. 

John Degenkolb’s 31st-place finish at Paris-Roubaix was the highest-placed finish in a Monument for the team, though Pavel Bittner did finish second at Scheldeprijs.

Interestingly, when the WorldTour licenses were handed out at the end of last season, the Dutch team were only handed a one-year contract compared to the three that the other seventeen teams received. 

The UCI explained that “The UCI Licence Commission has decided to limit the duration of the licence to one year and to set conditions related to the financial criterion that must be met to permit its extension to the 2027 and 2028 seasons."

Another significant blow for the team was the relatively late departure of star rider Oscar Onley. This was in addition to Tobias Lund Andresen, who has had an excellent season, as well as Kevin Vermaerke, to UAE. 

For a team that found themselves in a WorldTour relegation battle last season, the loss of such important riders ahead of the latest campaign means that it doesn’t come as a major surprise that they have been unable to feature towards the front of the Monuments.

With the team’s last victory coming on stage 5 of the Tour de Suisse last June,  the team will be searching for a moment of magic that can kick-start their season.