2016 UCI World Tour

2016 UCI WorldTour
Eighth edition of the UCI World Tour
Details
Dates19 January – 1 October
LocationAustralia, Europe and Canada
Races27
Champions
Individual championPeter Sagan (Slovakia) (Tinkoff)
Teams' championMovistar Team
Nations' championSpain
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The 2016 UCI World Tour was a competition that included 27 road cycling events throughout the 2016 men's cycling season. It was the eighth edition of the ranking system launched by the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) in 2009. The competition started with the opening stage of the Tour Down Under on 19 January, and concluded with Il Lombardia on 1 October. Spain's Alejandro Valverde was the two-times defending champion.

Valverde was unable to defend his title, as he finished fourth in the individual rankings. The title was won for the first time by Slovakian rider Peter Sagan for the Tinkoff team, scoring 669 points over the course of the season. This included victories at Gent–Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec. Second place went to Valverde's Movistar Team team-mate Nairo Quintana, 60 points behind Sagan; Quintana also won three races overall: the Volta a Catalunya, the Tour de Romandie and the season's final Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España. Third place in the individual rankings went to Chris Froome (Team Sky), 45 points behind Quintana and 105 in arrears of Sagan. Froome took two wins on French soil during the World Tour campaign, winning the Critérium du Dauphiné as well as the Tour de France.

Two other sub-classifications were also contested. In the teams' rankings, Movistar Team finished top for the fourth year running, with a total of 1471 points. Second place went to Tinkoff, 110 points behind, while Team Sky finished in third position. The nations' rankings was headed by Spain, with a points advantage of 29 over Colombia, with Great Britain over 400 points adrift of Spain in third place.