The 2018

UCI Women's World Tour The UCI Women's World Tour is the premier annual female elite road cycling tour. History In order to increase the coverage of Women's cycling the UCI held a summit in December 2014 between the UCI Women’s Working Group and the UCI Women's ...

was a competition that included twenty-four

road cycling Road cycling is the most widespread form of cycling in which cyclists ride on paved roadways. It includes Recreational cycling, recreational, Road bicycle racing, racing, Bicycle commuting, commuting, and utility cycling. As users of the road, ...

events throughout the 2018 women's cycling season. It was the third edition of the ranking system launched by the

Union Cycliste Internationale The ''Union Cycliste Internationale'' (UCI; ; en, International Cycling Union) is the world governing body for sports cycling and oversees international competitive cycling events. The UCI is based in Aigle, Switzerland. The UCI issues racing ...

(UCI) in 2016. The competition began with

Strade Bianche The Strade Bianche is a road bicycle race in Tuscany, Central Italy, starting and finishing in Siena. First held in 2007, it is raced annually on the first or second Saturday of March. The name ''Strade Bianche'' (Italian for ''White Roads'') st ...

on 3 March and concluded with the

Tour of Guangxi The Tour of Guangxi (officially known as the GREE-Tour of Guangxi for sponsorship purposes) is an annual professional cycling stage race held in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The race consists of multi-stage and is part of the UCI ...

on 21 October.

Anna van der Breggen Anna van der Breggen (born 18 April 1990) is a Dutch former professional road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2009 and 2021 for Team Flexpoint, , and . She won the gold medal in the women's road race at the 2016 Summer Olympics ...

of the Netherlands was the defending champion. Van der Breggen, riding for the team, was unable to defend her title, as she finished third in the standings behind compatriots

Annemiek van Vleuten Annemiek van Vleuten (born 8 October 1982) is a Dutch professional road racing cyclist, who rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . Van Vleuten is a two-time winner of both the road race (2019 and 2022) and the time trial (2017 and 2018) at the UCI ...

() and

Marianne Vos Marianne Vos (; born 13 May 1987) is a Dutch multi-discipline cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . After winning a junior European and World Championship in road racing, she continued her success in senior cycling by becomin ...

, who was riding for the squad. Having taken three podium finishes, van Vleuten took the top spot after a strong second half of the season commencing at the women's Grand Tour, the

Giro Rosa The is an annual elite women's road bicycle racing stage race. It was rebranded from 2013-2020 as the Giro Rosa, having been branded the Giro Donne until 2012 and again in 2021. It has been considered the most prestigious stage race in women's roa ...

. Van Vleuten won three of the last four stages, taking the overall victory by over four minutes from her closest competitor, as well as winning the race's points classification. Two days later, at

La Course by Le Tour de France La Course by Le Tour de France was an elite women's professional road bicycle race held in France. First held in 2014 as a one-day race on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, it has been part of the UCI Women's WorldTour since 2016 as a one or two ...

, van Vleuten took victory on the finish line, surpassing van der Breggen, who had faded over the closing stages. Van Vleuten then took the World Tour jersey for the season, winning the overall at the

Holland Ladies Tour The Holland Ladies Tourhttp://www.hollandladiestour.nl/ Official site is a women's elite professional road bicycle racing stage race held annually in September since 1998 in the Netherlands. It's a tour with 6 or 7 stages. For sponsorship reasons ...

, again with three stage victories, ultimately finishing on 1411.86 points. Vos finished 16.98 points behind in second place, with a tally of 1394.88 points. After podium finishes at the

Trofeo Alfredo Binda Trofeo Alfredo Binda-Comune di Cittiglio is a women's professional road bicycle racing event held annually in the ''comune'' (municipality) of Cittiglio and nearby comunes located within the Province of Varese in the Italian region Lombardy. Sinc ...

, and the

Women's Tour A woman is an adult female human. Prior to adulthood, a female human is referred to as a girl (a female child or Adolescence, adolescent). The plural ''women'' is sometimes used in certain phrases such as "women's rights" to denote female hum ...

, Vos took her first victory of the season with a stage win at the Giro Rosa, before a second-place finish in

RideLondon RideLondon is an annual festival of cycling held in London. Intended as an annual legacy of the London 2012, London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, it was first held in 2013. The format consists of a series of cycling events on closed roads ...

's Classique race. In the August Scandinavian races, Vos won the Postnord UCI WWT Vårgårda road race, before taking a clean sweep of the

Ladies Tour of Norway The Ladies Tour of Norway is a women's cycle stage race. The first edition of the race was held from 15 to 17 August 2014 based in the town of Halden in south east Norway. It consisted of an individual time trial prologue and two road race stages ...

, winning all three stages and the general classification, taking the World Tour lead in the process. Vos ended her road season after another second-place finish at the GP de Plouay – Lorient Agglomération, shifting her focus to the cyclo-cross season starting in the following month, losing the lead to van Vleuten in the process. Van der Breggen, with 1323.33 points, led the classification for most of the season, taking four victories by the end of the April, including the season-opening Strade Bianche, and two of the three

Ardennes classics The Ardennes classics are three cycling classics held in mid-April in the Belgian Ardennes and southern Limburg in the Netherlands: Liège–Bastogne–Liège, La Flèche Wallonne and Amstel Gold Race. First held in 1892, 1936 and 1966 respectiv ...

, with only the

Amstel Gold Race The Amstel Gold Race is an annual one-day classic road cycling race held in the province of Limburg, Netherlands. It traditionally marks the turning point of the spring classics, with the climbers and stage racers replacing the cobbled classics r ...

– won by teammate

Chantal Blaak Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (née Blaak; born 22 October 1989) is a Dutch road racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . In 2017 she became world road race champion in Bergen, Norway. Career Junior career Van den Broek-B ...

– not going to van der Breggen. Van der Breggen skipped the Giro Rosa, and failed to win another individual race on the World Tour, with her only remaining success of the season coming during the Postnord UCI WWT Vårgårda team time trial. In the World Tour's other classifications, rider

Sofia Bertizzolo Sofia Bertizzolo (born 21 August 1997) is an Italian professional racing cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam UEA Team ADQ Major results ;2014 : UEC Junior Road European Championships ::1st Road race ::6th Time trial : Natio ...

from Italy was the winner of the youth classification for riders under the age of 23. Bertizzolo took four victories in the classification, and finished with 42 points, 12 points ahead of the next closest rider,

Liane Lippert Liane Lippert (born 13 January 1998) is a German cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . Career Born in Friedrichshafen, Lippert started her career in local club ''RSV Seerose Friedrichshafen'' in 2008. In the following years sh ...

of , a three-time winner during 2018. were the winners of the teams classification, with 4329.99 points, taking eight wins during the season, just as they did in

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...

. finished in second place with 4119.02 points, primarily through the performances of van Vleuten and

Amanda Spratt Amanda Spratt (born 17 September 1987) is an Australian road cyclist, who currently rides for UCI Women's WorldTeam . Spratt was selected to represent Australia at the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympics. In 2012, 2016 and 2020 she won the Aust ...

, who finished fourth overall in the individual classification, with five victories. Third place went to on 3321.99 points, taking three victories during the season.

Teams

For the 2018 season the following teams were not listed by the UCI at UCI Women's team level: , , , , and .

Events

For the 2018 season, the calendar consisted of 24 races, up from 20 in

. All 2017 races returned for the 2018 calendar, with the additions of the

Three Days of Bruges–De Panne 3 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 3, three, or III may also refer to: * AD 3, the third year of the AD era * 3 BC, the third year before the AD era * March, the third month Books * ''Three of Them'' (Russian: ', literally, "three"), a 1901 n ...

, the

Emakumeen Euskal Bira The Emakumeen Euskal Bira was a women's cycling race held in the Basque Country, Spain. It was held annually from 1988 to 2019, starting out as a two-stage race and building up to five stages in 2007. One of these stages was always a double stag ...

and the

to the calendar. The

also added a stand-alone team time trial that awarded full points to the rankings, held the day before the main stage race.

Points standings

For the 2018 season, a new point-scoring system was introduced by the

(UCI), rewarding the top 40 riders rather than the top 20 as in

. Further changes were made to the teams classification, where all point-scoring riders were counted in the rankings.

Individual

Riders tied with the same number of points were classified by number of victories, then number of second places, third places, and so on, in World Tour events and stages.

Youth

The top three riders in the final results of each World Tour event's young rider classification received points towards the standings. Six points were awarded to first place, four points to second place and two points to third place.

Team

Team rankings were calculated by adding the ranking points of all the riders of a team in the table.

Notes

References

External links

* {{2018 in road cycling 2018 in women's road cycling UCI Women's World Tour