Van Avermaet still top of WorldTour rankings
(Cyclingnews.com)

Alejandro Valverde`s fourth Liege-Bastogne-Liege victory lifted the Movistar rider into second place in the WorldTour standings although it`s Greg Van Avermaet who remains well out in front on 2528 points. Valverde picked up 500 points for his Liege win, to go with the 400 points from his La Fleche Wallonne victory, to jump in front of Amstel Gold Race winner Philippe Gilbert on 1995 points. Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) also moved up the individual standings due to his third place in Liege and sits third on 1701 points. Following his best showing to date at the cobbles classics, capped off with a debut monument victory, Van Avermaet`s 12th place at Amstel Gold Race and 11th at Liege saw the Belgian only marginally add to his tally. At the pointy end of the individual points tally, Jon Izaguirre (Bahrain-Merida) and Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) were the biggest movers after Liege. Izaguirre jumped from 17th to ninth on 841 points while Matthews made the move from 38 to 15 and now has 661 points to his name.ADVERTISEMENT After the first 18 WorldTour events of the 2017 season, 331 riders have scored points with Van Avermaet the only man with more than 2000 to his name. Of the 18 WorldTour teams, BMC Racing has the greatest spread with 25 of its riders scoring points so far this season. The American teams sit a distant second in the team rankings on 5065 points to QuickStep-Floors` tally of 7107. At the bottom of the team rankings is Astana with 1188 points. Dimension Data are the closest team on 1353 points while UAE Team Emirates are 16th on 1570 points. The next WorldTour race on the calendar is the Tour de Romandie (April 25-30) with 500 points for the overall winner.  You can read more at Cyclingnews.com