2023 Rider Rankings: Who Had been the Season’s Prime Performers? Spencer Martin goes via the end-of-season statical rankings to find out who was the perfect rider in the course of the 2023 season, and who must right their course heading into 2024.

– This text is an excerpt from the Past the Peloton e-newsletter. Enroll right here for full entry. –

Was Jonas Vingegaard the perfect in 2023?

After months of racing in the course of the 2023 professional biking season, one may think that it might be simple to find out the game’s prime rider, however this process is much tougher than it seems at first look. With Jonas Vingegaard lately tightening his grip on the game’s largest grand tour common classification star after being topped as the perfect rider of the 2023 season by being awarded the current Vélo d’Or prize, Mathieu van der Poel getting three large wins (Sanremo, Roubaix & World Championships) in 2023, Remco Evenepoel producing beautiful rides to seize stage wins on the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España, however showing adrift as a GC contender, and Tadej Pogačar rattling off an absurd variety of wins, factors (see our current TOL piece on his absurd successful proportion and race day to PCS factors ratio) whereas failing to win the Tour de France for the second consecutive season, a number of prime rider has a good declare to the throne, whereas additionally having a notable hole of their resume.

To treatment this, I wished to step again and take inventory of the end-of-season rankings (factors and wins) in an try and put the cumulative performances of the highest riders into context and, most significantly, discern who truly had the perfect rider of the 2023 professional biking season (for a breakdown on the highest groups, take a look at final week’s BTP Group Rankings Breakdown).

To begin issues off, let’s check out the highest 20 riders within the UCI and PCS Factors, together with win rankings, and undergo a couple of takeaways.

Tadej Pogačar – Prime UCI factors

Prime 20 2023 UCI Rider Factors Rankings

For the third straight yr, Tadej Pogačar took the highest spot within the UCI factors rankings, together with ending within the prime two for the fourth consecutive season.

• This reveals an virtually absurd mixture of consistency and result-getting from a rider who can virtually seemingly shift between difficult on the largest GC and one-day races.

Prime 20 2023 Rider PCS Rankings

Within the Professional Biking Stats factors rankings, like UCI level rankings, Pogačar additionally will get the highest spot for the third consecutive yr and his fourth-straight top-two end.

• However resulting from retooling of the UCI factors distribution system within the low season between the 2022-2023 seasons to present extra weight to greater races, his relative margin of victory within the PCS factors desk is decrease, Evenepoel strikes into second forward of Vingegaard and Wout van Aert falls from fifth to seventh, whereas Jasper Philipsen, who racked up a big quantity of factors at smaller races, strikes into fifth.

Prime 20 Win Rankings

Wanting on the 2023 win rankings, we see that regardless of growing his win complete, Pogačar did not defend his win title resulting from Jasper Philipsen each having an excellent season and racking up 4 wins within the last week of the season on the lower-level Tour of Turkey.

• The scope of simply how good Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič had been in 2023 comes into focus resulting from their potential to land third and 4th within the win rankings regardless of being GC riders (who’ve a lot fewer probabilities to win than sprinters).

Whereas the overall win rankings are attention-grabbing, if we distill them down to simply WorldTour (plus World Championship) wins, we get a a lot clearer image of which riders had the perfect season.

Fast Win/Rankings Takeaways:

• Evenepoel’s tally of 12 WT & WC wins instantly stands out as extremely spectacular (together with the truth that each win he racked up in 2023 was both at a WorldTour, World or Nationwide Championship race).
• Roglič, Vingegaard, and Pogačar’s nice years are underlined resulting from taking a majority of their wins at main races.
• This rating nonetheless obscures Mathieu van der Poel’s unbelievable season, which noticed him win two Monuments (Milano-Sanremo & Paris-Roubaix), end on the rostrum at one other (Tour of Flanders) and win a highway race World Championship.
• After all, this is because of the truth that outdoors of these spectacular and high-profile wins, he gained little else and underperformed on the Tour de France.

Huge wins for Mathieu van der Poel

Evaluating Success

Whereas my The Outer Line colleagues and I tried to mathematically weight every win in an try to determine who had the perfect 2023 season (the train discovered that Tadej Pogačar’s high quality win depend, race days/factors accrued, and races began/races gained ratios had been traditionally good), I wished to do a barely extra subjective rating of who had the perfect season.

• To do that, I’ve narrowed down the yr’s prime riders to 4 candidates, the highest three within the UCI and PCS factors rankings Pogačar, Vingegaard, and Evenepoel, plus the world championship, Van der Poel, because of the status and issue of his restricted 2023 accomplishments.

Pogačar – Prime rating

Pogačar’s 2023 Highlights:
UCI Level Rank: 1st
PCS Level Rank: 1st
Wins: 17 (10 WT)
Grand Tour: 2nd general at Tour de France, 2x Stage Wins (TdF)
One-Week: 1st at Paris-Good, 1st at Ruta Del Sol
Monument Prime Tens: 1st at Tour of Flanders, 1st at Il Lombardia, 4th at Milan-Sanremo
Different Notable WT Wins: 1st at Amstel Gold, 1st at La Flèche Wallonne
Notable non-WT Wins: third at World Highway Race Championships

A ‘good’ season for Remco Evenepoel, with disappointments

Evenepoel’s 2023 Highlights:
UCI Factors Rank: third
PCS Level Rank: 2nd
Wins: 13 (12 WT or WC)
Grand Tour: 5x Stage wins (2xGiro, 3xVuelta)
One-Week: 1st at UAE Tour, 2nd at Volta a Catalunya, third at Tour de Suisse
Monument Prime Tens: 1st at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, ninth at Il Lombardia
Different Notable WT Wins: 1st at Clásica de San Sebastián
Notable non-WT Wins: 1st at World TT Championships, 1st at Belgian Nationwide Highway Race Championships

Prime wins for Van der Poel

Van der Poel 2023 Highlights:
UCI Factors Rank: seventh
PCS Level Rank: tenth
Wins: 6 (3 WT or WC)
Grand Tour: none
One-Week: 1st at Belgian Tour
Monument Prime Tens: 1st at Milano-Sanremo, 1st at Paris-Roubaix, 2nd at Tour of Flanders,
Different Notable WT Wins:
Notable non-WT Wins: 1st at World Highway Race Championships

Vingegaard – The Tour once more and 2nd in la Vuelta

Vingegaard 2023 Highlights
UCI Factors Rank: 2nd
PCS Level Rank: third
Wins: 15 (11 WT)
Grand Tour: 1st at Tour de France, 2nd at Vuelta a España, 3x Stage Wins (1xTdF, 2xVuelta)
One-Week: 1st at Tour of the Basque Nation, 1st at Critérium du Dauphiné
Monument Prime Tens: none
Different Notable WT Wins:
Notable non-WT Wins: 1st at O Gran Camiño & 3x Stage Wins

Pogačar on the prime

So, Who Was The Greatest Rider?

By pulling out their highlights and evaluating them side-by-side, it instantly turns into apparent that each rider had an excellent season, just one rider, Tadej Pogačar, was in a position to get prime outcomes throughout the whole calendar and self-discipline.

2023 Race-Sort Success Matrix

Podium Tally by Race Sort:

Whereas the three non-Pogačar riders have a good declare to being the season’s prime rider, Vingegaard gained the game’s largest and hardest race (in addition to being awarded the Vélo d’Or prize for the season’s prime rider), Van der Poel nailed a shocking treble with two Monuments and a World title, and Evenepoel led the record in prime quality (WorldTour/World Championship) wins, all of them needed to sacrifice one side of the calendar so as to accomplish this.

• For instance, whereas Vingegaard might need had the higher grand tour GC marketing campaign, he did so resulting from placing no effort and vitality into one-day races, and Van der Poel and Evenepoel might need had some nice one-day and single-stage performances, however they did so on the expense of grand tour performances.
• In the meantime, Pogačar was in a position to dominate the most important one-day occasion of the season, Tour of Flanders, in opposition to Van der Poel, whereas nonetheless being the game’s second-best grand tour GC racer behind Vingegaard, who wouldn’t be capable to be aggressive in cobbled races in opposition to the highest riders.
• Verdict: Because of this, Tadej Pogačar, regardless of his disappointing loss to Vingegaard on the Tour de France, must be thought-about the perfect rider of the season resulting from his potential to attain sturdy outcomes throughout each kind of main race. Behind him, Remco Evenepoel edges out Tour-winner Jonas Vingegaard for 2nd resulting from having barely extra WorldTour +World Championship wins and fewer gaps in his ‘2023 Race-Sort Success Matrix’, and Van der Poel is available in 4th resulting from missing the uncooked quantity of success throughout the whole calendar as the opposite three.
• BTP Prime 2023 Rider Rankings
  1) Tadej Pogačar
  2) Remco Evenepoel
  3) Jonas Vingegaard
  4) Mathieu van der Poel

Not Wout van Aert’s greatest season

Stars in Want of a Bounce Again in 2024

Wout van Aert

• It may be absurd even to counsel {that a} rider who gained E3 in opposition to Van der Poel and Pogačar, lit up phases of the Tour de France at will, and completed fifth within the UCI rankings had a down yr, however when you’re one of the vital versatile and gifted riders of all time, you’re held to a far larger normal.
• By almost each metric, his 2022 was effectively under the usual he set in 2021. However probably the most notable letdown to me was his WorldTour win complete.
• Van Aert WorldTour Wins By 12 months
  2023: 1
  2022: 9
  2021: 12
  2020: 5
• As nice as Van Aert has been for his Jumbo-Visma groups in grand excursions, it’s simple that he has fallen behind his friends Pogačar and Van der Poel, who’ve racked up 9 Monument victories since Van Aert gained his final (and first) on the 2020 Milano-Sanremo.

An invisible Richard Carapaz

Richard Carapaz

• Since ending 2nd general on the 2022 Giro d’Italia, the 30-year-old has utterly disappeared from the GC contender conservation resulting from a mix of disappointing campaigns (2022 Vuelta) and damage (the primary 3/4ths of 2023).
• His sturdy end in one-day races to complete the 2023 season indicators he could possibly be on the verge of a comeback 2024, nevertheless it nonetheless stays to be seen if he can return to a degree in grand excursions that may permit him to compete with the new-wave of ultra-young GC contenders.

A poor 2023 season for Enric Mas

Enric Mas

• The 28-year-old Spaniard remains to be in his prime and the designated chief of the Movistar staff, however a poor 2023, which noticed him end sixth general at his residence grand tour (Vuelta) and be overwhelmed by his countryman Mikel Landa, who’s heading to Soudal Fast-Step to develop into a domestique for Remco Evenepoel, was a low level of his GC profession.
• With Juan Ayuso rising as the brand new Spanish GC star, and the strong-headed Nairo Quintana, who will definitely see himself because the staff’s new chief, coming to Movistar in 2024, Mas, who hasn’t gained a European WorldTour race in 5 years regardless of main a WorldTour staff, is underneath important stress to get again to the extent that noticed him end 2nd general on the 2022 Vuelta.

What subsequent for Jai Hindley?

Jai Hindley

• It’s somebody odd to incorporate a rider who gained a stage on the Tour de France en path to a prime ten general end, however the 27-year-old Hindley, who completed on the rostrum twice on the Giro d’Italia between 2020-2022 (successful it in 2022), is presently in is hazard of being sucked into the domestique vortex of his newly-signed Bora teammate Primož Roglič.
• With no important WorldTour one-day ends in his profession, the stress is on Hindley to show himself able to successful non-Tour de France grand excursions in 2023 if he desires to keep away from being slotted right into a pre-Vuelta Sepp Kuss position of being a climbing domestique for Roglič (and even perhaps Cian Uijtdebroeks).

Julian Alaphilippe – Not the rider he was

2022 Efficiency Test-In

In final yr’s 2022 Rider Rankings recap, I recognized three superstars who had been in want of a efficiency step-up in 2023 to retain their standing because the peloton’s prime performers.

• These three riders had been Mathieu van der Poel, Primož Roglič, and Julian Alaphilippe.
• Taking a look at their UCI rating variations, it’s instantly clear that Van der Poel, and Roglič, who moved from ninth to seventh and twenty fourth to 4th within the UCI rankings, and, within the case of Van der Poel, gained a World Title and two Monuments, had been profitable in stepping up their efficiency and being thought-about two of the highest riders within the sport.
• Nonetheless, Alaphilippe, who completed 88th within the rankings, did not return to his once-great degree and continued his multi-year slide.
• Alaphilippe 12 months-Over-12 months Efficiency Decline
  2023: 2 wins (4 podiums)
  2022: 2 wins (7 podiums)
  2021: 4 wins (14 podiums)
  2020: 3 wins (7 podiums)
  2019: 12 wins (19 podium)
  2018: 12 wins (19 podiums)

Jumbo-Visma 2023 GT domination

2023 Main Races in Overview

Monuments
Milano-Sanremo: Mathieu van der Poel
Tour of Flanders: Tadej Pogačar
Paris-Roubaix: Mathieu van der Poel
Liège–Bastogne–Liège: Remco Evenepoel
Il Lombardia: Tadej Pogačar

Grand Excursions:
Giro d’Italia: Primož Roglič
Tour de France: Jonas Vingegaard
Vuelta a España: Sepp Kuss

World Championships:
Highway Race: Mathieu van der Poel
Time Trial: Remco Evenepoel

How typically will we see the rainbow jersey cross the road first in 2024?

# Spencer Martin is the creator of the cycling-analysis e-newsletter Past the Peloton that breaks down the nuances of every race and solutions huge image questions surrounding staff and rider efficiency. Enroll now to get full entry to all of the obtainable content material and race breakdowns. #

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