Who Won and Lost Most in 2026? Pogačar Crushed Then Crashed, and Picnic Has Big Problems

Tadej Pogačar doesn’t need a full season to dominate, Picnic-PostNL needs a rescue package, and moneyball tactics pay off.

They’re some of the top takeaways from the individual and team rankings in this final week of 2026.

Il Lombardia wrapped up all the major racing on the 2026 calendar last weekend, and the individual victory and UCI points rankings are all but set.

They tell some interesting tales of haves, have-nots, breakouts and busts.

Summary tables for the peloton’s top-20 riders and all 18 WorldTour teams can be found below, with splits for victories and UCI points.

These are not expected to change significantly as the season winds down with low-key races through Europe and Asia before it comes to a full stop this Sunday.

Here are five of the most eye-catching takeaways from the end-of-year leagues.

Be warned, it’s grim reading for some.

1. Tadej Pogačar crushed – and he only raced six months

Tadej Pogačar didn’t even need a full season to obliterate everybody this year. The 28-year-old topped the victory and UCI rankings by several bike lengths, despite his season starting late at Strade Bianche and ending abruptly on August 29.

Pogi won 22 times this year and scored eight more victories next-best rider Paul Magnier.

And this was all killer, no filler.

Super-prestige victories at the Tour de France, two WorldTour stage races, Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Strade Bianche saw Pogačar dominate the UCI points rankings in just 45 race days.

His individual 9,000-point haul from six months matched or exceeded what four entire teams could manage all year. It was more than three times what 30 riders could pick off at poor Picnic-PostNL.

Second-place Remco Evenepoel was choking on Pogi’s exhaust, 2,000 UCI points back.

It’s almost scary to consider what Pogačar could have achieved this year.

The GOAT could have finished 2026 with more than 12,000 UCI points if a brutal crash at the Vuelta a España hadn’t denied him the red jersey and the chance to fulfill the role as favorite for the world championships, European champs, and Il Lombardia.

For context, Pogačar scored 11,655 points in his Hall of Fame 2024 season.

A very tepid take? Pogačar will top the victory and points leagues again in 2027. The only question is by how far.

2. UAE-Emirates XRG the disappointed dominators?

UAE Emirates-XRG was the winningest team of 2026, but this was a long way from its absolute rout of 2025.

The team of Tadej Pogačar, Isaac del Toro and world champion Brandon McNulty “only” won 77 times this year. That’s a long way short of the single-season win record of 95 it set last year, and its worst return since 2023.

It’s a luxury letdown for UAE Emirates-XRG.

Despite dropping 18 wins year-on-year, it remains in its own tier of the WorldTour. The Emirati superteam towers over its rival Visma-Lease a Bike and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, who won 51 and 42 times, respectively.

So what went “wrong” for the world’s richest, deepest team in 2026?

Three things.

1. João Almeida won nothing. Zilch. The Portuguese star won 10 times last year but failed to get off the mark in his illness-riddled annus horribilis.

2. Juan Ayuso left. The Spaniard won seven times for UAE Emirates-XRG last year, despite a spicy spat with management. Those victories weren’t replaced.

3. As we wrote above, Pogačar lost the chance to bank a hatful of late-season wins after he was upended at the Vuelta.

Bettering brilliance, it’s a tough job to have.

3. It’s not pretty at Picnic-PostNL

The 2026 rankings are a brutal tale of haves and have-nots.

While UAE Emirates-XRG is miles off the front, Picnic-PostNL is so far off the pace it would need multiple sticky bottles to catch up.

Picnic-PostNL won only two times this year and collected just 2,680 points.

Of the WorldTour teams, it’s dead last in the UCI points league. Beyond that, it’s been outscored by 10 lower-tier rivals in a full UCI ranking that includes ProTeams and Conti teams.

And it could have been even worse. The disaster Dutch team was stuck on just one victory until Pavel Bittner snatched sprint victory and allowed a brief flush of pride this September at Paris-Chauny.

The bad news – Bittner, the team’s brightest prospect, is leaving for Pinarello-Q36.5.

Picnic-PostNL is facing an existential crisis right now.

The squad recently denied reports it was contemplating relegating itself to the second-tier of racing for 2027, but the writing seems to be on the wall.

Money in Sport reported in January that the team has lost €19.5m over three years. Bike sponsor Lapierre is fighting for survival. Bittner’s exit, along with the departure of former winners Fabio Jakobsen and Casper van Uden, suggests the team will be fighting for survival next year, too.

The partnering women’s team is in similar trouble. It hasn’t put a single “W” in the column all year.

4. XDS-Astana makes profit from moneyball

Picnic-PostNL should maybe consult XDS-Astana for some tips.

The Kazakh crew punched way above its mid-tier budget to land sixth in both the victory and UCI rankings for 2026.

But how does a team without one of the peloton’s “bigs” collect 32 wins and 16,028 points?! It outperformed Lidl-Trek, Soudal Quick-Step, and Alpecin-Premier Tech, all without a Tim Merlier, a Mads Pedersen, or an MVDP.

The answer?

Moneyballing.

XDS-Astana reprised its points-farming policies of 2025 with wild success in 2026.

Winningest rider Matteo Malucelli took eight of his nine victories for the year by bullying lower-tier rivals in a month of late-season racing across Asia. Likewise, Christian Scaroni gobbled top-10s in all the one-day and stage races nobody else bothered to show up to.

But to give the team its due – Guillermo Silva finished 14th in the win rankings courtesy of one of the year’s breakout seasons. When he wasn’t scoring “easy wins” at 2.pro stage races, the 24-year-old won a stage, wore the pink jersey, and finished in the top-6 four times at the Giro d’Italia.

XDS-Astana gets heat for its data-driven, distinctly unglamorous approach to rider scheduling.

It’s not pretty, but it works damn well.

5. Paul Seixas arrives in style

Paul Seixas showed absolutely no respect for the established order of things in his first full WorldTour season.

The recently turned 20-year-old blew the door off the hierarchy by winning eight times and placing fourth in the UCI rankings – higher than the likes of Jonas Vingegaard and Wout van Aert, and not far short of Mercxian Mexican Isaac del Toro.

Not bad for a kid who completed 47 of his 49 race-days as a teenager.

Seixas followed the Pogačar precedent in 2026.

There’s very little fat to trim from a lean, mean palmarès that includes wins at Il Lombardia, Itzulia Basque Country, and La Flèche Wallonne.

Seixas also scored big when he wasn’t winning, racking up points for fourth overall at the Tour de France and hitting the podium at Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and GP Montréal.

Seixas was a smash hit in his debut season. Given how hard Decathlon-CMA CGM is fighting away interest from other teams, few are worried about him backing it up in the notoriously difficult second album.

And some quick hit takeaways

• The bigs are back. Wout van Aert, Remco Evenepoel, and Jonas Vingegaard all rocketed up the victory rankings after they were stymied by illness or injury in 2025.
• Lidl-Trek dropped off the pace. Mads Pedersen was sidelined with injury through the early season, and despite being one of the riders of the Tour de France, could only count one stage-win across the three weeks. The Dane won 14 less races in 2026 – his team felt the loss.
• Tom Pidcock’s position in the points rankings is a truer reflection of his season than his win count. The Brit was one of the form riders of the second half of 2026 but only came away with a total of five victories. Still, all those near-misses added up to a lot of UCI points.

2026 pro cycling rankings

Note: All data is based on results as of October 13. These will change slightly before the season comes to a full halt on October 18.

Win rankings courtesy Pro Cycling Stats, UCI  points rankings per UCI website.

Rider win rankings 2026

Team wins rankings 2026

Rider UCI points rankings 2026

Team UCI points rankings 2026