Pogacar with 11, Evenepoel with 10, and Visma | Lease a Bike with just 4: these team interests are (potentially) a factor at the World Cycling Championships

In 2024, we saw Pavel Sivakov riding alongside his UAE team leader, Tadej Pogacar, for a long time on behalf of the French team, until he could no longer keep up and eventually finished 35th, 6 minutes and 40 seconds behind. “I felt good that day, and I just wanted to follow him for as long as possible,” he said afterwards.

"At one point, I really believed in the podium. When he attacked at the top of a climb, I was able to follow him at first, but just before the top, he dropped me. He then looked back and waited for me. That was the moment he crushed me. I burned myself out on his wheel and completely exploded, which meant the end of my race. That also tells me how incredibly strong he was," was Sivakov's conclusion afterwards.

In 2025, some of Pogacar's teammates will not be traveling to Rwanda. Tim Wellens is struggling with the fact that he would have to ride against the Slovenian, and other strong riders such as Brandon McNulty, Jhonatan Narváez, Joao Almeida, Adam Yates, Nils Politt, and Rafal Majka, who are in top form and part of Pogacar's regular group, are also not there.

Nevertheless, with eleven riders, UAE Emirates-XRG still has the most riders at the start of this World Championship, which once again demonstrates the team's strength. With Isaac del Toro and the departing Juan Ayuso, it still has two podium contenders in its ranks, while Sivakov, Marc Soler, Florian Vermeersch, and Domen Novak, among others, will also be participating.

After the team from the Emirates, Jayco AlUla (ten), Soudal Quick-Step (ten, with Remco Evenepoel, of course), and Lidl-Trek (nine, of whom Mattias Skjelmose, Giulio Ciccone, Quinn Simmons, Bauke Mollema, and Toms Skujins have personal ambitions) have the most riders at the start in Rwanda.

INEOS (Thymen Arensman and Egan Bernal), Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe (Primoz Roglic and Jai Hindley), Tudor (Julian Alaphilippe and Marc Hirschi), and EF Education-EasyPost (Richard Carapaz and Ben Healy) each have six riders at the start. Visma | Lease a Bike (no team leaders), on the other hand, will have ‘only’ four, as will Tom Pidcock's Q36.5 and Oscar Onley's Picnic PostNL, among others.

The battle for promotion and relegation also weighs heavily on the World Championship peloton. Uno-X is leaving riders such as Tobias Halland Johannessen at home and will only be represented by Andreas Leknessund, who is ranked sixth in the World Time Trial Championships. Competitor Cofidis is only sending Oliver Knight.

11 - UAE Team Emirates (Tadej Pogacar, Isaac del Toro, Juan Ayuso, Pavel Sivakov, Marc Soler, Jan Christen, Jay Vine, Florian Vermeersch, Antonio Morgado, Ivo Oliveira and Domen Novak)

10 - Jayco AlUla (Michael Matthews, Mauro Schmid, Luke Plapp, Eddie Dunbar, Chris Harper, Anders Foldager, Chris Juul Jensen, Felix Engelhardt, Ashborn Hellemose and Luka Mezgec)

10 - Soudal Quick-Step (Remco Evenepoel, Ilan Van Wilder, Valentin Paret-Peintre, Mattia Cattaneo, Louis Vervaeke, Casper Pedersen, James Knox, Gianmarco Garofoli, Luke Lamperti and Martin Svrcek)

9 - Lidl-Trek (Mattias Skjelmose, Giulio Ciccone, Quinn Simmons, Bauke Mollema, Toms Skujins, Andrea Bagioli, Sam Oomen, Carlos Verona and Julien Bernard)

8 - XDS-Astana (Wout Poels, Haoyo Su, Harold Tejada, Lorenzo Fortunato, Fausto Masnada, Henok Mulubhran, Harold Martin Lopez and Anthon Charmig)

7 - EF Education-EasyPost (Richard Carapaz, Ben Healy, Mikkel Honoré , Jefferson Cepeda, Archie Ryan, Darren Raffery and Yuhi Todome)

6 - INEOS Grenadiers (Egan Bernal, Thymen Arensman, Magnus Sheffield, Brandon Rivera, Victor Langelotti and Brandon Rivera)

6 - Tudor (Julian Alaphilippe, Marc Hirschi, Michael Storer, Fabian Weiss, Larry Warbasse and Florian Stork)

5 - Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe (Primoz Roglic, Jai Hindley, Roger Adria, Matteo Sobrero and Ryan Mullen)

5 - Movistar (Ivan Romeo, Jefferson Cepeda, Natnael Tesfatsion, Carlos Canal and Will Barta)

5 - Intermarché-Wanty (Biniam Girmay, Louis Barré, Georg Zimmermann, Jonas Rutsch and Alexander Kamp)

4 - Visma | Lease a Bike (Cian Uijtdebroeks, Victor Campenaerts, Attila Valter and Menno Huising)

4 - Picnic PostNL (Oscar Onley, Frank van den Broek, Kevin Vermaerke and Chris Hamilton)

4 - Q36.5 (Tom Pidcock, Fabio Christen, Mark Donovan and Rory Townsend)

4 - Bahrain Victorious (Matej Mohoric, Fred Wright, Afonso Eulalio and Matevz Govekar)

4 - Israel-Premier Tech (Joe Blackmore, Marco Frigo, Krists Neilands and Nadav Raisberg)

3 - Alpecin-Deceuninck (Quinten Hermans, Xandro Meurisse and Gal Glivar)

3 - Decathlon AG2R (Paul Seixas, Johannes Staune-Mittet and Callum Scotson)

2 - Groupama-FDJ (Valentin Madouas and Sven Erik Bystrom)

2 - Arkéa - B&B Hotels (Embred Svestad-Bardseng and Raul Garcia Pierna).

1 - Uno-X (Andreas Leknessund)

1 - Cofidis (Oliver Knight)

0 - Lotto