The Green Jersey Disrespect in UCI/PCS scoring systems..

[Juan Pelota]

What's a greater achievement..5th place in Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, or winning the green jersey in the Tour De France?

Yet, you get 225 UCI points for that 5th place and only 210 points for the Green Jersey.

Would you rather win the Green Jersey at the Tour, or get 6th place at the Renewi Tour? Guess which gives you more PCS points?

The Green Jersey is far more prestigious an achievement. The Green Jersey winner of the Tour is almost always one of the greatest riders in the world, if not the best. The quality of rider it takes to win the Green Jersey is immense, and the points should reflect that fact. It should be given as much points as a monument. 800 UCI points. 500 PCS points.

 

[proffate]

You also get points for each stage result along the way. Last year JP got 1320 UCI points before you even add the points for the final green jersey. With the last 210, he got basically 2 monuments worth of points for his TDF. That's a joke if you ask me.

 

[Nick2413]

Agreed but if the points help increase participation in races that riders/teams otherwise wouldn’t target maybe it can be a good thing. Everyone’s going to ride Tour anyway. But unfair to the green jersey winner. But does anyone really care about points besides UAE?

 

[RedheadDane]

But does anyone really care about points besides UAE?

Teams who are in danger of demotion?

 

[Nick2413]

Teams who are in danger of demotion?

My angle was more about green jersey, most teams going for that aren’t the ones barely getting by or doing it for points, at least it doesn’t seem like it.

 

[Red Rick]

Grand Prix Cyliste Montreal >> Green Jersey.

The Green Jersey is a terrible competition that's almost never actually a competition anymore and it just serves as propaganda for the sprinter with the best train.

 

[scribers]

Grand Prix Cyliste Montreal >> Green Jersey.

The Green Jersey is a terrible competition that's almost never actually a competition anymore and it just serves as propaganda for the sprinter with the best train.

I have not paid attention. Is it true the intermediate sprints and surviving until the third week are not primary factors anymore?

 

[Red Rick]

I have not paid attention. Is it true the intermediate sprints and surviving until the third week are not primary factors anymore?

Surviving 3rd weeks is much easier these days with modern time limits, and basically usually only one rider is fully committed to green and he mops up everything.

The fact that it's so obviously geared towards sprinters ruins the entire idea of the competition. The Giro and Vuelta then went and copied it to destroy their own points jerseys too.

I literally take Froome stealing green in Vuelta jersey by sprinting for 8th place in the final Vuelta stage over whatever the hell that *** is now.

It's so dumb a rider like Milan walks the Giro Ciclamino by winnin a full 1 sprint stage while you have dudes like Derek Gee being in every breakaway and animating the entire race and never remotely having a shot because one flat sprint stage is worth 3 mountain stages.

Finally it also takes away the chacnes that a versatile GC rider who loses out on GC can even try it by going in breakaways and competing on a lot of terrains.

 

[Gratemans]

and the points should reflect that fact.

This is where I disagree. The prize for the green jersey is the green jersey. Who cares about or remembers uci points?
Like Nick said, if it helps smaller races to get a more attractive starting list, I'm cool with that.

 

[scribers]

Surviving 3rd weeks is much easier these days with modern time limits, and basically usually only one rider is fully committed to green and he mops up everything.

The fact that it's so obviously geared towards sprinters ruins the entire idea of the competition. The Giro and Vuelta then went and copied it to destroy their own points jerseys too.

I literally take Froome stealing green in Vuelta jersey by sprinting for 8th place in the final Vuelta stage over whatever the hell that *** is now.

It's so dumb a rider like Milan walks the Giro Ciclamino by winnin a full 1 sprint stage while you have dudes like Derek Gee being in every breakaway and animating the entire race and never remotely having a shot because one flat sprint stage is worth 3 mountain stages.

Finally it also takes away the chacnes that a versatile GC rider who loses out on GC can even try it by going in breakaways and competing on a lot of terrains.

The ideal green jersey winner to me is a Sagan type rider.

 

[Red Rick]

The ideal green jersey winner to me is a Sagan type rider.

Libertine Seguros dislikes this

 

[Libertine Seguros]

Libertine Seguros dislikes this

Absolutely not the case. I totally agree that a Sagan-type rider should be the type of rider that wins the points classification. Much as Sean Kelly did, or Óscar Freire, Paolo Bettini, those types. Today, people like van Aert, van der Poel, Pedersen, absolutely.

I just didn't want that Sagan-type rider to be Sagan himself.

Anyhow, the thing is that the green jersey is essentially the jersey for the rider who's scored the most points in stage finishes anyway, so they're going to have a ton of points from the stage race anyway. Giving a load of points for the maillot vert is basically giving double value to sprints which are already overvalued in the competition anyway, and result in more teams controlling the race to accumulate sprint placements and make the race less interesting to watch.

Now, if you wanted to argue the GPM is underappreciated in terms of UCI points, that would be an interesting debate, because increasing the value of that jersey for UCI points might stimulate better racing. Unfortunately the current spread of points in the system massively overvalues MTFs and therefore makes it so that in recent years in the Tour the top GC guys win the jersey almost inadvertently, without actually trying to, while strong escapees who focus on the jersey, like Richard Carapaz in 2020, or Michael Woods and Wout Poels in recent years, who would have been perfectly respectable GPM winners, go on breaks fighting every summit for two weeks then are blown out of the water by riders who just win a couple of high-category MTFs with double points. Sorting out the value so it isn't a pure king of the breakaways title like it has descended to in the Vuelta (a product of their tendency for /\/\/\________/ type stage designs and not having bonuses for MTFs) so that it balances the break and the GC contenders is a tricky balancing act, but if they could do that and then make the GPM worth significant UCI points, that could be beneficial. But I don't see it as realistically being successfully implementable in the near future at least.

 

[Juan Pelota]

You also get points for each stage result along the way. Last year JP got 1320 UCI points before you even add the points for the final green jersey. With the last 210, he got basically 2 monuments worth of points for his TDF. That's a joke if you ask me.

Ok, that’s actually a great point, but not everyone wins just about every sprint as Jasper does, and the same logic doesn’t apply for yellow.

Jonas gets 1300 points on top of everything he accomplished in the stages.

 

[Juan Pelota]

This is where I disagree. The prize for the green jersey is the green jersey. Who cares about or remembers uci points?
Like Nick said, if it helps smaller races to get a more attractive starting list, I'm cool with that.

It matters for historical significance. Lots of people look to UCI points or more so PCS points in determining all time great rider lists.

 

[Red Rick]

Ok, that’s actually a great point, but not everyone wins just about every sprint as Jasper does, and the same logic doesn’t apply for yellow.

Jonas gets 1300 points on top of everything he accomplished in the stages.

Tour de France GC is literally the biggest thing in cycling. And the amount of chances a GC rider gets to win a stage in general isn't that high.

The tradeoff often discussed is "stage win vs 10th place in GC", not GC win vs stages. In fact Tour GC being only worth the same as 5-7 sprint stages is a pure comedy to me.

In my view, green jersey being the same # of points as a single stage win seems about right to me.

 

[Nick2413]

They could do a lot to spice up the green and polka dot jerseys, even more than what they were in the past, especially with the way GC is increasingly dominated by 1 or 2 teams. Give the other 20 teams and fans something else to focus on.

 

[Netserk]

I don't particularly care about UCI points, but I think the green jersey is as prestigious as two stage wins. Maybe even more than that.

It was decided on the last stage in 2003 when Cooke with his 2nd place took the jersey from McEwen in 3rd on the stage. I'd think both of them cared far more about the jersey than the stage win that day.

 

[jmdirt]

Grand Prix Cyliste Montreal >> Green Jersey.

The Green Jersey is a terrible competition that's almost never actually a competition anymore and it just serves as propaganda for the sprinter with the best train.

When was the last time that happened? 2010 Petachi?

 

[Armchair Cyclist]

Jasper Philipsen's point haul from the Tour de France last year as a percentage of Vingegaard's score (with and without the 15 daily Yellow Jersey bonuses), the points for first place in a monument, and the reward for winning a major one week tour, according to the three points systems we are most familiar with.

	PCS	CQ	UCI
% of Vingegaard	84​	47​	58​
% of Vingegaard without YJ bonuses	84​	62​	68​
% of Monument win	256​	204​	180​
% of one wk tour win	282​	219​	288​

(to nearest whole number)

All three systems give a bonus for winning the green jersey equivalent to a stage win.

 

[Anderis]

When was the last time that happened? 2010 Petachi?

You don't think Philipsen had the best train last year?

 

[jmdirt]

You don't think Philipsen had the best train last year?

Two riders isn't a train, IMO. Maybe I'm old, but the sprint trains had 6-8 drilling it from 10K out. Team Hair Booster didn't do that for JP.

 

[AmRacer]

You have gathered lots of points to win the Green, so the points the Green gives you are on top of that.

 

[Brullnux]

Surviving 3rd weeks is much easier these days with modern time limits, and basically usually only one rider is fully committed to green and he mops up everything.

The fact that it's so obviously geared towards sprinters ruins the entire idea of the competition. The Giro and Vuelta then went and copied it to destroy their own points jerseys too.

I literally take Froome stealing green in Vuelta jersey by sprinting for 8th place in the final Vuelta stage over whatever the hell that *** is now.

It's so dumb a rider like Milan walks the Giro Ciclamino by winnin a full 1 sprint stage while you have dudes like Derek Gee being in every breakaway and animating the entire race and never remotely having a shot because one flat sprint stage is worth 3 mountain stages.

Finally it also takes away the chacnes that a versatile GC rider who loses out on GC can even try it by going in breakaways and competing on a lot of terrains.

Milan would've probably won it under the old format too tbh, he also had four second places and he would've ended up 15 or so points clear of Gee excl. intermediate sprints, which Milan would've put more effort into had he needed to I reckon.

 

[Anderis]

Two riders isn't a train, IMO. Maybe I'm old, but the sprint trains had 6-8 drilling it from 10K out. Team Hair Booster didn't do that for JP.

I clearly remember them doing something like that on at least one occasion. Maybe you don't realise because the peleton has got more competitive and one team is not capable of being at the front for the entire last 10km. It doesn't mean they don't have 5-6 guys in a formation all working to deliver Philipsen in the best position possible to the final sprint.

 

[jmdirt]

I too would like to see the green and dots jersey points be modified a little, but during every GT I wonder why teams that have little chance of doing well in the GC (top 10) don't target those more (no, I don't have the exact plan for that but...). Like LS/others have already said, the points are skewed, but at least make a better effort to stick a wheel in that points system.

This might also bring in a discussion about the UCI trying to help create more parity among teams.