The Fenix-Deceuninck team found out today that the UCI Licence Commission has awarded them the final spot on the 2023 Women’s WorldTour. The Belgian team has recently announced a name change from Plantur Pura to Fenix-Deceuninck for 2023 and released their new team jersey. Back when I reviewed who was likely to make the 2023 Women’s WorldTour, Ceratiznt-WNT were the best-placed team and had a comfortable lead. However, a late-season charge from the then named Plantur Pura team, saw them finish a healthy 400 points ahead of the German team. Julie de Wilde’s win at Grisette Grand Prix de Wallonie and a host of late-season Belgian races helped their cause.
The 3 teams who lodged official applications for the 2023 Women’s WorldTour knew that they would be dependent on who had scored the most ranking points in 2022. Plantur Pura scored 2884.33 points, Ceratizit-WNT scored 2401.33 points and AG Insurance-NXTG scored 1360 points. From the point the season ended and the points were locked in, the hopes of Ceratizit-WNT and AG Insurance-NXTG were dependent on Plantur Pura failing one of the other checks which are ethical, financial, administrative and organisational based. With today’s announcement by the UCI, it’s clear that everything went through smoothly.
Aside from the promotion of Fenix-Deceuninck, the other bit of interest is the mention of Israel Premier Tech Roland (known as Roland Cogeas Edelweiss in 2022) as not having been registered directly by the UCI. Their admission to the 2023 Women’s WorldTour was reviewed by the UCI Licence Commission. Their promotion to the 2022 Women’s WorldTour had no mention of being conditional at the time, so something in their application must’ve required further scrutiny. Ultimately, it has been accepted and they will continue to race in the WWT in 2023.
The 2023 season is key for deciding who gets a Women’s WorldTour licence for the 2024 & 2025 seasons. Teams have their points added together from 2022 and 2023 into an overall ranking. The highest-ranked 15 teams that make an application and can adhere to the ethical, financial, administrative and organisational checks, will be confirmed as a WWT team for the following 2 seasons. A similar process will take place adding up the totals of the 2024 and 2025 seasons to decide who gets the WWT licences for the 3-year period from 2026.
