Adam Yates, left, and João Almeida, right, finished first and second respectively at the Tour de Suisse (Getty Images)
Adam Yates made significant gains in the Road Code Ranking by winning the Tour de Suisse, the third of cycling’s big-seven one-week stage races that he has won.
Following previous victories at the 2021 Volta a Catalunya and 2023 Tour de Romandie, Yates added the Suisse title to his palmarès in impressive fashion, further cementing his status as one of his generation’s finest one-week stage racers, as well as underlining the strength that UAE Team Emirates possess ahead of the Tour de France.
Yates started the season well, with a win at the Tour of Oman, but concussion at the subsequent UAE Tour sidelined him for several weeks, while he was off the pace at April’s Romandie. He therefore sat low in the Road Code Ranking, but that all changed at the Tour de Suisse, with two stage wins, a hat-trick of second places and top spot in the GC, points and King of the Mountains classifications. It meant that he collected almost 1,400 points to move him from 91st to 17th. In the Stage Races ranking, he broke into the top 10, jumping 37 places to 8th.
His team-mate João Almeida was also in imperious form in the Alps, finishing second to Yates on GC and winning two stages in the same race for the first time since the 2021 Tour of Poland. Similar to the Briton, Almeida had a slow start to the season and is playing catch-up in the Road Code Ranking, but his success in Switzerland has moved him to 30th.
As is often the case, the Tour de Suisse was bookended by two time trials, with 150 points on offer for each day’s winner. Almeida’s victory on Stage 8, allied to his fourth place on the opening day, earned him 225 points and 14th spot in the Individual Time Trial ranking, just 30 points shy of Thymen Arensman in 10th.
The biggest mover at the Tour de Suisse was Lidl-Trek’s Mattias Skjelmose. The Dane, 23, took the final spot on the podium and finished third in as many stages. Following good showings at Paris-Nice (4th on GC and a stage win) and Itzulia Basque Country (3rd on GC), Skjelmose is now 10th in the Road Code Ranking, sixth in the Climb ranking and fifth in the Stage Race ranking. It highlights that the scoring rewards season-long consistency.
With the exception of Tadej Pogačar, who is streets ahead of the competition in the Road Code Ranking, just 800 points separate Juan Ayuso in second and INEOS Grenadiers’ Egan Bernal in 14th. A couple of stage victories can therefore catapult a rider several places, and that’s what Tim Merlier did at the Baloise Belgium Tour, winning two of the three stages – and both of them ahead of Jasper Philipsen.
Tim Merlier has moved to the top of the Sprint ranking with two wins at the Baloise Belgium Tour (Getty Images)
The Soudal Quick-Step rider continued his Giro d’Italia form and moved from 10th to 6th, and he also replaced Jonathan Milan as the leader in the Sprint ranking. Philipsen won one stage and the points classification and moved to third in the sub-category, and is now 13th in the overall ranking ahead of a Tour de France that he is once again expected to star in.
There was also a third stage race taking place last week, BORA - hansgrohe’s Giovanni Aleotti winning the Tour of Slovenia. Pello Bilbao, of Team Bahrain Victorious, won the queen stage and finished second on GC, accruing more than 500 points across the five days. He now sits 14th in the Stage Races ranking.
The triple-header of stage racing saw many of the peloton’s top stars in competition just before the national championships and Tour de France, and though there weren’t too many eye-catching changes in the Road Code Ranking and its sub-categories, the points earned by the riders helped them all to steadily progress further up the classifications.
What’s more, the difference in points awarded in different races – 150 points for a stage win in Switzerland; 100 points in Belgium and Slovenia – is representative of how the Road Code Ranking works: it’s not the race you win, but who you beat. Yates, Almeida and Skjelmose - the three standout riders in Switzerland - were the biggest beneficiaries last week.