Contador top of WorldTour rankings

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Of the 99 riders who have now scored UCI WorldTour points, Alberto Contador (Tinkoff-Saxo) sits atop the individual rankings with a total of 198 points, followed by Peter Sagan (Cannondale) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) with 143 and 137 points respectively.

Due to Contador's second place at the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya, behind Joaquim Rodriguez (Katusha), Spain now also lead the national rankings while Ag2r-La Mondiale is back on top in the team rankings.

With two races offering points over the weekend with the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya in Spain and Gent-Wevelgem in Belgium, a shake up of the UCI WorldTour classifications was always on the cards. Rodriguez, who was victorious in his home race for the second time in his career, moved up to sixth in the individual rankings and is the defending champion of the season-long ranking.

"This was a lot harder than in when I won in 2010," Rodríguez said of the race he won overall. "This time, with so many rivals so close to me overall, it all stayed undecided right the way through to the last metre of the last stage. The smallest piece of bad luck could have changed everything."

In Gent-Wevelgem, Giant-Shimano's John Degenkolb's impressive bunch sprint win ahead of France's Arnaud Demare (FDJ.fr) and E3 Harelbeke winner Peter Sagan (Cannondale) resulted in further changes at the top of the rankings. A crash in the finale affected sprinters, Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) and André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol), reducing the number of Degenkolb's rivals, but the timing of his final acceleration in the last metres of the 233km race proved decisive. DEgenkolb rose to ninth in the individual rankings thanks to his win. He now has 94 points and moved up 30 places.

Former leaders Carlos Alberto Betancur (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) dropped to fourth and fifth respectively.

In the nations classification, long-standing leaders Australia dropped down a place as Spain romped ahead of them with a new total of 455 points thanks to the efforts of Contador and Rodriguez. Australia, now in second, remain with their previous total of 336, whilst France advance to third with 310 points as Romain Bardet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) and Warren Barguil (Giant-Shimano) finished top-ten in Catalunya.

The team classification has also seen a change of leader, with Ag2r-La Mondiale now back in the number one spot they occupied briefly earlier this year after Paris-Nice. This time their advantage of 309 points over Movistar (271), looks much more solid than earlier in the year. Tinkoff-Saxo also made an large advance, jumping three places to third overall with 269 points.

The next UCI WorldTour event is the Tour of Flanders, which takes place on Sunday April 6.