The pound has plummeted in recent months, falling to a 31-year low in the wake of Brexit, but one currency that has gone from strength to strength is the WorldTour point.
As a primary selection criterion for the UCI's Licence Commission, these points have taken on a whole new significance since the UCI declared it would reduce the quota of WorldTour teams from 18 to 17 next year, leaving new applicants Bahrain-Merida and Bora-Hansgrohe in a three-way battle with Dimension Data – this year's lowest-ranked team – over the final two licences.
The recruitment policy of Bahrain-Merida, the new team backed by the Kingdom of Bahrain, has come under scrutiny, the suspicion being that they have sought to bring in points-rich riders in order to get ahead of their rivals. Those riders have all come together for the first time at a camp in Croatia, where team manager Brent Copeland told Cyclingnews that it's "absolutely not the case" that they've been signing riders for their points.
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Vincenzo NIbali, the team’s marquee signing who brings 241 points from his Giro d'Italia victory, has been on board from the start of the project, but since the transfer window opened in August the team have brought riders like Ion Izaguirre (ranked 11th with 270 points) and Kanstantin Siutsou (40 points) out of their contracts – a rarity in cycling.
Amstel Gold Race champion Enrico Gasparotto is another rider who brings proffers triple figures (though he doesn't appear on the official rankings as he was riding for a Pro Conti team), but perhaps the most perplexing of all is the signing of Joaquim Rodríguez (211 points), who had seemingly retired from the sport, and now won't even say if he will race or not next season.
"For sure people will look and say 'they've taken riders with points and pulled names out of a hat', but that's absolutely not the case," said Copeland.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
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