Flanders results push Belgium up to third, but Great Britain slips to ninth

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HTC-Highroad’s Matt Goss remains a point ahead of the Lampre-ISD rider Michele Scarponi at the top of the UCI WorldTour rankings. However, the chase is on with Fabian Cancellara of Leopard Trek and Quickstep’s Tom Boonen moving up. Meanwhile, Great Britain have slipped towards the bottom of the national top ten, and will need to consolidate their position to avoid again being limited to just three riders come the UCI Road World Championships in the autumn.

In the latest edition of the rankings, published today, Cancellara moves from ninth to third, with Boonen up from 12th to fourth following their respective third- and fourth-placed finishes in the Tour of Flanders yesterday. Cadel Evans of BMC Racing slips from third to fifth, and is followed by Tony Martin of HTC-Highroad, Alberto Contador of Saxo Bank-SunGard and Garmin-Cervelo’s Cameron Meyer.

Nick Nuyens, the surprise winner in Flanders, makes his first appearance in the rankings this season in ninth place, while runner-up Sylvain Chavanel is another debutant and occupies ninth spot.

The main change in the national rankings sees Belgium jump from fifth to third, reaping the benefits from some strong performances from riders on home roads in Flanders, with Germany and Spain each slipping a place to fourth and fifth, respectively.

Further down the national standings, however, Great Britain slides from seventh to ninth. Should the country drop out of the top ten, that could mean that later this year, when the entrants are finalised for the UCI Road World Championships in Copenhagen later this year, the country may only be able to field three riders, as happened in Australia last autumn.

That could hurt Mark Cavendish’s chances of winning the coveted rainbow jersey. The Manxman has not yet picked up any ranking points himself this season, with the Team Sky trio of Ben Swift, Bradley Wiggins and Geraint Thomas the only British riders to have done so.

Cavendish’s HTC-Columbia team remains at the head of the team standings, with Rabobank moving back into second place and Lampre-ISD slipping one place to third. Team Sky, meanwhile, have dropped from fifth to eighth.

Born in Scotland, Simon moved to London aged seven and now lives in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds with his miniature schnauzer, Elodie. He fell in love with cycling one Saturday morning in 1994 while living in Italy when Milan-San Remo went past his front door. A daily cycle commuter in London back before riding to work started to boom, he's been news editor at road.cc since 2009. Handily for work, he speaks French and Italian. He doesn't get to ride his Colnago as often as he'd like, and freely admits he's much more adept at cooking than fettling with bikes.