The 2018

UCI Women's World Tour The UCI Women's World Tour is the premier annual female elite road cycling tour. , the tour includes 27 events in Europe, Asia and Oceania – with one-day races such as Strade Bianche Donne and Paris–Roubaix Femmes, stage races such as Wo ...

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, racing, commuting, and utility cycling. As users of the road, road cyclists are generally expected to obey the same laws a ...

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; ) 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 licenses to riders and enforces di ...

(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 stems from the historic white gravel roads in ...

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 Road bicycle racing, cycling race held in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China. The m ...

on 21 October.

Anna van der Breggen Anna van der Breggen (born 18 April 1990) is a Dutch professional Road bicycle racing, road bicycle racer, who rode professionally between 2009 and 2021 for Team Flexpoint, , and . She won the gold medal in the Cycling at the 2016 Summer Olymp ...

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 retired Dutch professional Bicycle racing, road racing cyclist, who most recently rode for UCI Women's Team, UCI Women's WorldTeam . Van Vleuten is twice a winner of both the UCI Road World Cha ...

() and

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

, 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 women's Road bicycle racing, cycle stage race around Italy. First held in 1988, the race is currently part of the UCI Women's WorldTour, UCI Women's World Tour, and is currently organised by RCS Sport, the organisers of the men' ...

. 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 List of women's road bicycle races, women's professional road bicycle race held in France. First held in 2014 as a one-day race on the Champs-Élysées stage in the Tour de France, Champs-Élysées in ...

, 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, 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, and the Women's Tour, 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 festival consists of a series of cycling events on closed roa ...

'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, 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 respec ...

, with only the

Amstel Gold Race Amstel Gold Race may refer to: * Amstel Gold Race (men's race) The Amstel Gold Race is a one-day classic cycle races, classic road bicycle race, road cycling race held annually since 1966 Amstel Gold Race, 1966 in the province of Limburg (Netherl ...

– won by teammate

Chantal Blaak Chantal van den Broek-Blaak (née Blaak; born 22 October 1989) is a Dutch road racing cyclist, who last rode for UCI Women's WorldTeam . In 2017 she became world road race champion in Bergen, Norway. Van den Broek-Blaak also won several classi ...

– 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 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 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 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

. 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 Au ...

, 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, the

Emakumeen Euskal Bira The Emakumeen Euskal Bira was a women's cycling race held in the Basque Country (autonomous community), 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 ...

and the

to the calendar. The Ladies Tour of Norway 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