XDS-Astana amassed 1,068 UCI points in a single day on Wednesday, fueled by dominant performances at the Tour of Oman and the Asian Continental Championships, but team officials insist the points chase is over.
The Kazakhstani-backed team, which secured WorldTour status in 2025 after finishing fourth in the season-end rankings with 6,727 UCI points and 32 wins, is now second in the 2026 UCI rankings with 2,447.7 points, trailing only UAE Team Emirates-XRG. Cristian Scaroni won the Tour of Oman, finishing ahead of teammate Cristían Rodríguez, while Yevgeniy Fedorov secured a one-two finish with Nicolas Vinokourov at the Asian Continental Championships time trial. Fedorov, Haoyu Su, and Vinokourov then took first, second, and fourth respectively in the road race, adding another 575 points to the team’s tally.
Despite the significant points haul, XDS-Astana Directeur Sportif Dmitry Fofonov stated a clear shift in strategy. “We’re riding with a completely different mentality than last season,” Fofonov told Wielerflits. “Racing for wins is the way we like best. You don’t want to miss out on victory when you start with three good riders just to score with all three of them, do you?”
The change in approach stems from a desperate push for WorldTour licensing in 2025. “We were in trouble then. We desperately needed the points, so we made a one-time plan. Against our nature, just to secure our license,” Fofonov explained. He added that, in his 14 years with the team prior to taking the Directeur Sportif role, “the term ‘UCI points’ was never mentioned once.”
The team’s success in Oman included Scaroni and Rodríguez finishing one-two in the Green Mountain finale and overall standings, contributing 493 points. Earlier in the season, Christian Scaroni opened the team’s account with a win at the Classica Camp de Morvedre, and Matteo Malucelli secured a stage win at the AlUlaTour. These victories, combined with the Asian Championship results, demonstrate the team’s strong start to the 2026 season, with six wins already recorded.
Fofonov emphasized that the current three-year cycle for promotion and relegation allows for a more relaxed approach to points accumulation. “We’re now entering a modern three-year cycle that will determine promotion, and relegation. You can afford to lose points again, because a new cycle is starting anyway,” he said. “Suppose we don’t get many points now, there’s always next year to make up for it.”
The team’s focus now is on securing victories in top-tier races, rather than targeting smaller events solely for points. Fofonov expressed hope that riders like Scaroni, who earned the majority of his points at a lower level in 2025, will be able to compete for titles in prestigious races such as the Ardennes Classics. “We may not have scored enough in the WorldTour races last year,” he acknowledged.
