Welcome to the first PCT update of 2026! January gave us 7 races with points for PCT teams, the Down Under Classic, Clasico San Jose, the Tour Down Under, the Tour of the Middle East (shared with PT), the Circulo de Juarez, the Great Ocean Road Classic and the Hong Kong Challenge. Most of the points came in the Australian races, the Middle East and Juarez, which means a happy month for the sprinters. Same as last season I will start at the bottom and work our way up.
Bottom of the table we find Grieg-Maersk with 40 points, and 32 of them came in the Great Ocean Road Classic where Jonas Abrahamsen was 9th and Fredrik Dversnes 11th. 4 points per race day is a tough start. Riders of Rohan are 21st with 58 points, where Cees Bol scored 33 of them. Duvel - Tsingtao are 20th with 65 points, most of them from the Middle East where Jules Hesters was 2nd on stage 3 behind Liu. Jura GIANTS complete the bottom 4 with 70 points, but they did get a stage win! Andres Paez won stage 2 of the Tour Down Under and wore the leader's jersey for a day after stage 3. It's early, but these 4 teams all project to under 1500 points.
At 18th with 110 points from 15 race days we find Gjensidige Pro Cycling Team. Odd Christian Eiking was 6th in the Tour Down Under, but that is about it. McCormick Pro Cycling are 17th with 122 points, and they have used 17 race days to get there. 7,18 points per race day is the third worst in the division. Aliaksandr Riabushenko was 8th in the Down Under Classic and is their top scorer with 52 points.
Moving up the table Bacharu Mamachari Faito! are 16th with 130 points from only 8 race days. Kaden Hopkins was 5th in the Down Under Classic and 2nd on the final stage of the Tour Down Under, while Christopher Lagane was 2nd on stage 2 and 8th overall. Just 2 riders with points, but not a bad start. Everesting are 15th with 158 points. Willi Willwohl was 5th overall in Juarez for 99 points and Pierre Latour 14th in the Middle East.
Bianchi Enel take 14th with 185 points, and 179 of them belong to Danny Van Poppel, a good start of the season for him. 2nd in the Down Under Classic, 3rd on stage 4 and 8th overall in Juarez. He needs some help from his teammates! SparkNZ - Liquigas Pro Cycling are 13th with 189 points. Carlos Rodriguez won the youth jersey in the Middle East, and Darshana Prasad was 7th in the Down Under Classic.
Newly relegated Lierse SK - Pizza Ullo PCTeam are 12th with 193 points. Maxim Van Gils was 10th in the Middle East and Alessandro Covi won the Hong Kong Challenge, passing Schlegel on the line. 50 of the 77 PCT points in Hong Kong went to Covi! Sauber Petronas Racing are 11th with 200 points from only 9 race days. Itamar Einhorn stole stage 4 in Juarez with an early sprint and Cristian Scaroni was 9th in the Middle East.
Lotto-Caloi are 10th with 211 points. They got 122 points in the Middle East with Kyeng Ho Min 13th and Santiago Buitrago 15th, plus 3rd in the team classification. No rider above 46 points, but plenty of riders in the points. Philips - Hero are 9th with 223 points from only 8 race days, and they have the second best points per race day in the division with 27,88! Hayden McCormick won the Tour Down Under, a rather surprising winner, after 2nd on both stage 3 and on Willunga Hill. David Haverdings took the youth jersey as well.
One of the promotion favorites Zwift - Newton Foundation are 8th with 230 points from 9 race days. Sondre Holst Enger won the first race of the PCT season, the Down Under Classic, coming around Coquard on the line. He was also 2nd on the final stage in Juarez even without any help in the final kilometres. 220 of the team's 230 points came from the Norwegian.
Tryg - Eni are 7th with 249 points, and they are another team where one rider have secured most of the points, in fact Matthew Walls has 223 of them. He won stages 1 and 4 in the Tour Down Under, took the points jersey and was only 8 seconds from the overall win. Add 9th in the Down Under Classic and 4th in the Great Ocean Road Classic and that is a great month for Walls. Minions are 6th with 288 points from 13 race days. Fabio Jakobsen was 4th overall in Juarez and 3rd in the Great Ocean Road Classic, while Jay Major was 3rd on the final stage in Juarez. 211 points in Juarez alone.
Another promotion favorite Team UBS - EDP are 5th with 312 points. Patrick Müller won the queen stage on Willunga Hill and ended 3rd in the Tour Down Under, and Dylan Groenewegen won the final stage. In the Middle East Joao Almeida was 6th overall for 109 points. 143 points in the Tour Down Under and 124 points in the Middle East makes for a solid start.
Bralirwa - Cegeka are 4th with 406 points. Three riders above 100 points! Valentin Madouas was 2nd in the Tour Down Under, only 6 seconds behind McCormick, Takeaki Amezawa was 5th in the Middle East and Jago Willems took the youth jersey in Juarez after 2nd on stage 3 and 6th in the Down Under Classic. That is what I call depth.
This is a month they really needed to perform, and the did! Ethiopian Airlines are 3rd with 453 points, and it's all about one man. Caleb Ewan won stage 3 in Juarez, the points jersey and the overall win on countback after finishing on the same time as Liu. 4th in the Down Under Classic as well, but he missed the split in the Great Ocean Road Classic and only got 4 points there. 308 points in Juarez for the team, the best score in any race this month.
Peugeot are 2nd with 485 points. Bryan Coquard was 3rd in the Down Under Classic and won the Great Ocean Road Classic ahead of teammate Rick Zabel, a Peugeot 1-2! Zabel was also 3rd overall in Juarez and is their top scorer with 184 points. Where many teams have had 1 sprinter scoring a lot for Peugeot it has worked with a duo. Other than that Aurelien Paret-Peintre won stage 3 in the Tour Down Under and Axel Kallberg took the mountain jersey in Juarez. Points from 6 of the 7 races, the only team to do that besides the leaders.
That leaves only 1 team, and that is Trans Looney Tunes with 684 points, 199 points ahead of Peugeot! Jiankun Liu won stage 3 in the Middle East, stages 2 and 5 in Juarez and only lost the overall there on countback. Mark Padun won stage 2 in the Middle East with a solo attack, led the race into the final day and ended 4th overall, the best PCT rider in the race. Add Matevz Govekar with 5th in the Tour Down Under and you have a team that scored in every big race. They have used 21 race days, the most in the division, but they also have the best projection with 5309 points. A great start for the Looney Tunes!
First leader of the PCT season is Caleb Ewan with 354 points, thanks to his overall win in Juarez. Only 23 points behind we find Jiankun Liu with 331 points, and it's no surprise these two are the top 2 after their duel in Mexico. Matthew Walls is 3rd with 223 points and Sondre Holst Enger 4th with 220 points.
Mark Padun is the best placed climber in 5th with 192 points, all from the Middle East. Then it's sprinters again, Rick Zabel in 6th, Danny Van Poppel in 7th, Fabio Jakobsen in 8th and Bryan Coquard in 9th. Tour Down Under winner Hayden McCormick completes the top 10 with 146 points.
8 of the top 10 are sprinters, which says a lot about what kind of month January was. Can anyone else strike back when the classics arrive in February?
Good start from DVP keep us where we need to be in the 2000pt range expect that to creep upwards slightly next couple of months before a dip in the summer when we are in a lot of tours but no real worries so far
Congrats Tina huge start and Heine with some big unexpected scoring
A decent start of the season, but heavily reliant on Jakobsen and the other sprinters for now. AvN's near-no-score in TDU should be a one-off if we're going to be in the promotion fight.
Solid January in Australia. 16th is safety, and once adjusted for RD we're comfortably in the midfield. Which given Lagane underperformed i'll take as a good sign indeed. Time to keep pressing onwards.
Easily our strongest January we've ever had, and we're on pace early on with that 4th place overall. GORR left a bit of a bad taste in our mouth, but Willems already increased Hodeg's entire points total from last year by 40% in the first month of the season, so that's still pretty good.
February will be incredibly important now to get ahead with the valuable Bini race days. OHN wasn't the greatest start, we'll see how things progress.
Thanks for the update Heine and congrats to a strong month both to you and to Tina most especially!
It's crazy how Walls and Rodenberg have both gone off (relatively) for their respective teams since they were swapped. Walls with more flashy success at his level though and does give me the slightest pings of regret!
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
A very good January for us with TDU. We will have more RDs and somewhat lesser suited races over the next couple of months, so can expect the PpRDs to drop as a result, but points on the board are always a positive.
Oof, even worse than I expected. The promotion spots are already 250 points away, and February won't be any better, so getting back to PT might not happen this year... Even 30 more TDU points wouldn't have changed a lot to the overall situation tbf.
Will have to hope that our leaders are really strong so we can get a couple of 20+ PpRD races as well. I guess some of the current top teams won't be able to perform at the same level throughout the whole year; in particular the sprinters have already had one of their top races now. But still a very impressive start!
