Uno-X Asks Riders to Skip Worlds in Last-Ditch Run at WorldTour Promotion: ‘It’s Going to Be Really Close’

Can Uno-X pull off a late-season Hail Mary and earn WorldTour status for 2026?

Thor Hushovd believes it can.

The Norwegian outfit sits 20th in the UCI’s rolling three-year ranking with 23,825 points and is now within striking distance of Intermarché-Wanty for the final “safe” WorldTour license spot for the 2023–25 cycle.

The team is closing fast, and the WorldTour’s sometimes-controversial relegation-promotion battle could go down to the wire.

Speaking to Velo, general manager Hushovd said it’s all or nothing from here to season’s end.

“If we race like we raced this year and we kind of keep the same level of points, we have a really big chance,” Hushovd told Velo. “But also, if suddenly one of these guys can stay up there in one of the biggest races and gets a lot of points, I think we come down to a really close race.”

The battle for points will get complicated and messy in the closing weeks of 2025. Teams are pushing for late-hour invites to races and directing riders to race for placement and chase precious points in every sprint.

Despite the high stakes, Hushovd insists it’s racing to win races, not points.

“We race to win races and we did the Tour de France to win a stage, not to get the most points out of it, but of course the points matter,” Hushovd told Velo. “But it’s not that we will do silly stuff only for the points, because other things are more important. We would just like to win races and then the points come.”

After a blistering 2025, Uno-X is in the running

After the team’s best season — marked by a Tour de France stage win with Jonas Abrahamsen and Tobias Halland Johannessen delivering the best Norwegian performance of all time in the Tour this summer with a sixth place overall — Uno-X is on fire.

The team is 10th in the 2025 season-long rankings, and its late-summer surge has put Cofidis and Intermarché into its sights.

The second-tier team finds itself somewhat surprisingly in the heat of the WorldTour promotion-relegation battle.

Hushovd said cycling’s top league is the team’s ultimate goal, either this round or in three years after the next rotation.

But better now, Hushovd says, because it’s there for the grabbing.

#Décryptage / Excellent article au sujet de Uno-X Mobility qui franchit les paliers un à un, en témoigne le graphe. https://t.co/2cuqXUjiDs pic.twitter.com/ObBMwu6B35

— Renaud Breban (@RenaudB31) August 19, 2025

“The owners would like to become WorldTour. Of course, you have to do more races. If we get into the WorldTour, we have to do all races, we need more staff, we need more sports directors, a stronger base of riders. So of course, you need special needs to be there, but that’s in the long-term plans,” Hushovd told Velo.

Just in the past few weeks, things have gotten tighter than anyone could have imagined.

It’s closing in on Cofidis, and Intermarché-Wanty is within striking distance.

With some teams facing possible sponsorship and rider problems if they do not retain WorldTour status, things are bound to get tense in the coming weeks for teams on the bubble.

It could come down to the final WorldTour race of the season at the Gree-Tour of Guangxi in October.

Canada over worlds

With WorldTour salvation within reach, Uno-X is making some tough choices.

TV2 Norway reported that Hushovd urged riders earlier this season to prioritize chasing UCI points over the Rwanda world championships in September.

Neither the Halland Johannessen twins nor breakaway stars like Abrahamsen will line up in Rwanda. Only Andreas Leknessund will represent Uno-X at the road worlds.

Norway has six spots, but is sending only four, with Tobias Foss (Ineos Grenadiers), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Decathlon-Ag2r), Embret Svestad-Bårdseng (Arkéa B&B Hotels), and Leknessund. The national coach told TV2 that Uno-X riders were left out of respect for the team’s points chase.

On paper, the world’s points do count toward team tallies, but Hushovd told TV2 the trade-off isn’t so simple.

“There are many points to be gained in the world championships if you do well, but it is a tough course, which requires altitude training, preparation, and vaccinations in advance, and there are several things that mean you have to sacrifice a lot. We have not said that the riders will not be allowed to participate, but that other things may be more important,” Hushovd told TV2.

UCI ranking men’s team, Uno-X Mobility:

2020: 25
2021: 23
2022: 22
2023: 21
2024: 18

15.08.2025: 9 pic.twitter.com/2L9qN9NpaJ

— Vegar Kulset (@VegarKulset) August 15, 2025

Instead, Uno-X has circled the two Canadian one-day WorldTour races that fall just before worlds. Both come with deep points hauls and suit the team’s climbers.

“The one-day races in Canada are important to us, there are many points to be gained, and they suit our climbers well. We have not set any requirements for anyone, but we have also set some goals and guidelines, and that includes the races in Canada,” Hushovd told TV2.

That contrasts with Intermarché, which will tackle the points-rich Vuelta a España with Louis Meintjes for GC and a squad of stage-hunters, as well as have some of its team riders race in Rwanda.

Uno-X only raced the Tour this year, and didn’t race the Giro d’Italia, and won’t be at the Vuelta, meaning that its WorldTour future hangs in the balance of the remaining autumn calendar.

Chasing the Tour de France guarantee

The Tour de France guarantee is what the team really wants.

They can earn that in two ways. The best and most challenging right now is scoring enough points to close out this season to finish within the top-ranked 18 teams in the three-year rolling ranking going into 2026.

The other option is to finish 2025 as one of the top two-ranked ProTour teams.

Under UCI rules, the two highest-ranked ProTeams at the end of each season are guaranteed invitations to all WorldTour races the following year, including the Tour.

Right now, Uno-X is leading the ProTeam standings, just ahead of Israel Premier Tech in the year-long table.

IPT looks destined to join the WorldTour anyway. It’s ranked 14th overall in the three-year tally, which clears Uno-X’s path to an automatic Tour berth for 2026.

Hushovd brushed off suggestions that Uno-X was ever at risk of missing this year’s Tour, saying the idea was so unthinkable he would have considered pulling the plug on the project.

“You always need to have respect for that, since we didn’t have the invitation when we started the season, but I was very confident because last year and the last few years we raced as we deserved to be in the Tour,” Hushovd told Velo. “Why should we leave out the team ranked number 10 when there are 22 teams? Then I would understand nothing.

“Then I would tell the owners, OK, let’s stop with it. If it’s that bad, if it’s only because of other things [not performance] that you should get the wildcard or not.”

Rising in latest rankings

The bottom of the table is going to get messy in the coming weeks.

XDS-Astana pulled off a near-miracle turnaround this year, bounding up from beyond the “safe zone” and now into 16th in the latest rankings, moving up five spots after a blistering opening to 2025 that saw the team on a points tear in the first half of 2025.

The momentum has cooled, however, and Astana still needs a strong finish to lock in its WorldTour survival.

Picnic-PostNL sits in 17th, buoyed by Oscar Onley’s breakthrough fourth place at the Tour de France. The Dutch team is just 700 points above the cut line and must scrape for every point in the closing weeks.

The real brawl is for the 18th and the final “safe” spot. Intermarché-Wanty stumbled down to the edge of relegation in 18th, with 25,244 points in the latest cumulative ranking.

Who’s at risk? The UCI relegation battle ahead of the #LaVuelta25

Arkea-B&B is doomed, for several reasons
Picnic and Astana WT-future is looking bright

Full analysis with the Vuelta ahead pic.twitter.com/qMrE01GoYC

— Domestique (@Domestique___) August 19, 2025

Cofidis dropped out of the safety zone into 19th, only 300 points ahead of Uno-X and already more than 1,000 points adrift of Intermarché. Arkéa-B&B, already wracked by sponsorship uncertainty, slumped further to 21st.

For Hushovd, that volatility only underscores the urgency of striking now if it can.

“There are a lot of factors going on, and it’s many races still, many points to go to fight for,” he told Velo. “I think we just have to focus, we just want to do everything we can so the riders can perform at a high level. We spent a whole month of May for an altitude camp. There’s not one point to get up there, but you will get them later on.”

Long-term family backing

Uno-X is not your typical cycling team.

It started as a men’s development squad before stepping up to the ProTeam ranks in 2020. In 2022, it founded what’s now the women’s World Tour squad, and both have guaranteed funding through the 2028 season.

The teams are backed by one of Norway’s wealthiest family-owned companies, Reitan AS, a sprawling business empire that now spreads across Scandinavia and runs everything from gas stations and convenience stores to real estate and capital investment.

Not quite the Viking version of Walmart, but close.

After earning its first men’s Tour de France invite in 2023, the team has quietly built momentum. Hushovd took over as general manager in early 2024, and with new co-sponsor Mobility, the ambition level kicked up a notch.

The payoff came this July with Abrahamsen’s breakthrough stage win at the Tour, a landmark moment for a rider who’s been with the project since its early days.

“The owners are very committed, long-term. They want to do this for many years,” Hushovd told Velo. “It’s a family-owned business, and when they do things, they do it 100 percent. But we like to take it step by step. If we don’t make the WorldTour now, they won’t step it down.

“They’re here for the long run, and I want to build a sustainable organization with a sustainable business plan.”

Would joining the WorldTour mean shedding its Norwegian identity? Right now, every rider on the elite men’s team is Norwegian or Danish, where the team owners also have a strong presence in Denmark.

Hushovd is adamant a WorldTour bump won’t scramble the team’s DNA.

“No, that’s not the plan,” he said. “It’s very important that there are teams with a strong identity, and that’s the plan.”

If promotion comes, Uno-X will need to sign a few extra riders to meet the calendar’s demands. But the team isn’t spending its pay to battle the super teams and $50 million team budgets.

“We are not up there at all. But if you take points divided by budget, we are very good,” Hushovd said. “The business model of the sport is another big topic. Where will this end if another big partner or a country with deep pockets decides to build the biggest team? There are no regulations, no limits. But without sustainability, it’s a problem.”

3-year rankings in relegation/promotion battle

(* data provided by ProCyclingStats)