It was once easy to discern who was the world’s best pro racer. For seven straight years, 1969 to 1975, Eddy Merckx won the Super Prestige Pernod competition (the equivalent of today’s UCI WorldTour), which awarded points in all of the major races: one-day classics, weeklong stage races and three-week grand tours. There was no denying that The Cannibal was No. 1.
The same could have been said for Jacques Anquetil, Laurent Jalabert, Bernard Hinault and Sean Kelly, who each topped the world rankings for four seasons in their hey-days. But often times, there’s no clear-cut contender for the top spot. That’s been the case for the past 10 years, when nine different riders have ended the season with the UCI’s No. 1 ranking.
In sports such as tennis and golf, there’s rarely such fluctuation in determining the world’s best. Those major sports have computer rankings systems that showed Roger Federer was No. 1 in tennis for more than five years and Tiger Woods was top dog in golf for almost 12 years. But road cycling is different. Our sport is not based on identical types of competition (such as a tennis tournaments or four rounds of golf), but features races from five hours in length up to 100 hours.
Over the past 65 years, there have been 37 separate holders of cycling’s No. 1 ranking (see list below), starting in the early postwar years with winners of the Challenge Desgrange-Colombo (organized by Europe’s major sports newspaper), right up to today’s UCI WorldTour. Of those 37 men, 20 were principally stage racers (like Miguel Induráin), eight were one-day riders who adapted to multi-day events (à la Jalabert), and just nine were pure classics specialists.
That’s why the performances of 2011’s rider of the year Philippe Gilbert were exceptional. Virtually all of the Belgian champion’s UCI WorldTour points were scored in single-day races, while the other riders in the top 10 were principally stage racers. In fact, Gilbert was the first classics specialist to be ranked No. 1 since Italian Paolo Bettini in 2003, while the only other one-day riders to earn best-in-the-world status in recent years were Germany’s Erik Zabel (2000-01) and Italy’s Michele Bartoli (1998). And we have to go back 50 years or more to find the previous such winners: Dutchman Jo de Roo, Frenchman Jean Graczyk, Belgians Fred De Bruyne and Briek Schotte, and Italian Loretto Petrucci.
So does Gilbert have what it takes to win the UCI WorldTour a second time? It seems unlikely that he will be able to repeat a season in which he won five major classics. A more likely No. 1 is his new BMC Racing teammate Cadel Evans—who last year was runner-up to Gilbert in the WorldTour (winning Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie before taking the Tour de France), and this year is adding the Ardennes classics to his schedule, races where he has done well in the past.
If Evans wins it, it won’t be for the first time; he earned No. 1 spot in the 2007 UCI ProTour rankings (prelude to the WorldTour). And two other former winners, the Spanish riders Joaquim Rodriguez of Team Katusha and Alejandro Valverde of Movistar, also have a shot at reclaiming the overall title. Valverde, back from a doping suspension, is already lying second in the 2012 WorldTour rankings, after finishing as runner-up to GreenEdge’s Simon Gerrans in January’s Tour Down Under. A former winner of the Vuelta a España and such classics as Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Valverde has the ability to again top the WorldTour charts—whatever you think of his involvement with the Operación Puerto blood-doping affair. Rodriguez is in the same mode as Valverde, but has lesser time-trialing skills and team strength.
Outside of these former No. 1s, there are at least five other riders who could emerge as the world’s best this year. Tony Martin won two WorldTour races last year: Paris-Nice (the 2012 edition of which begins this weekend) and the season-ending Chinese stage race, Tour of Beijing. Now riding for Belgian squad Omega Pharma-Quick Step (after his HTC-Highroad team disbanded), Martin is the world time trial champion and can use that skill to win more weeklong stage races—but he can’t aspire to No. 1 status until he performs at a higher level in grand tours and the classics.
More likely to challenge Evans and Valverde at the top of the rankings are the Italians Vincenzo Nibali of Liquigas-Cannondale and Michele Scarponi of Lampre-ISD, who have both won grand tours and do well in the hillier classics. Also more than ready to move to the top is Andy Schleck of RadioShack-Nissan. The doping suspension of Alberto Contador gave Schleck the overall victory in the 2010 Tour de France, and he was beaten into second place at last year’s Tour by Evans, but he now has a strengthened team to help him achieve a true Tour victory. Schleck can also ride well in the Ardennes classics and weeklong stage races—if he doesn’t focus entirely on the Tour.
Another contender is Britain’s Brad Wiggins, who started this season well with a victory over defending champ Martin at last month’s Tour of the Algarve (even though that’s not a WorldTour event). His powerful Team Sky, which helped Wiggins win last year’s demanding Critérium du Dauphiné before he crashed out of the Tour, will again make him a challenger at Paris-Nice and every other stage race he starts this year.
Who’s the best cyclist in the world? The answer keeps changing. We don’t have season-dominating champions such as Merckx anymore. So a better question might be, who will prove to be No. 1 in 2012? I’m banking on the ever-consistent Evans.
Winners of world No. 1 ranking over past 65 years (* indicates classics specialist, **started out as classics rider)
UCI WORLDTOUR 2011 Philippe Gilbert (B)*
UCI PROTOUR 2010 Joaquim Rodriguez (Sp)
2009 Alberto Contador (Sp)
2008 Alejandro Valverde (Sp)
2007 Cadel Evans (Aus)
2006 Alejandro Valverde (Sp)
2005 Danilo Di Luca (I)
UCI WORLD RANKINGS 2004 Damiano Cunego (I)
2003 Paolo Bettini (I)*
2002 Erik Zabel (G)*
2001 Erik Zabel (G)*
2000 Francesco Casagrande (I)
1999 Laurent Jalabert (F)**
1998 Michele Bartoli (I)*
1997 Laurent Jalabert (F)**
1996 Laurent Jalabert (F)**
1995 Laurent Jalabert (F)**
1994 Tony Rominger (Swi)
1993 Miguel Induráin (Sp)
CLASSEMENT FICP 1992 Miguel Induráin (Sp)
1991 Gianni Bugno (I)**
1990 Gianni Bugno (I)**
1989 Laurent Fignon (F)
1988 Sean Kelly (Irl)**
SUPER PRESTIGE PERNOD INTERNATIONAL 1987 Stephen Roche (Irl)
1986 Sean Kelly (Irl)**
1985 Sean Kelly (Irl)**
1984 Sean Kelly (Irl)**
1983 Greg LeMond (USA)
1982 Bernard Hinault (F)
1981 Bernard Hinault (F)
1980 Bernard Hinault (F)
1979 Bernard Hinault (F)
1978 Francesco Moser (I)**
1977 Freddy Maertens (B)**
1976 Freddy Maertens (B)**
1975 Eddy Merckx (B)
1974 Eddy Merckx (B)
1973 Eddy Merckx (B)
1972 Eddy Merckx (B)
1971 Eddy Merckx (B)
1970 Eddy Merckx (B)
1969 Eddy Merckx (B)
1968 Herman Vanspringel (B)**
1967 Jan Janssen (Nl)**
1966 Jacques Anquetil (F)
1965 Jacques Anquetil (F)
1964 Raymond Poulidor (F)
1963 Jacques Anquetil (F)
1962 Jo de Roo (Nl)* 1961
Jacques Anquetil (F)
1960 Jean Graczyk (F)*
1959 Henri Anglade (F)
CHALLENGE DESGRANGE-COLOMBO 1958 Fred De Bruyne (B)*
1957 Fred De Bruyne (B)*
1956 Fred De Bruyne (B)*
1955 Stan Ockers (B)**
1954 Ferdi Kübler (Swi)
1953 Loretto Petrucci (I)*
1952 Ferdi Kübler (Swi)
1951 Louison Bobet (F)
1950 Ferdi Kübler (Swi)
1949 Fausto Coppi (I)
1948 Briek Schotte (B)*
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