Road Bike Racing - UCI Rankings

Can someone explain to me how UCI rankings work? I don't understandd these current rankings:

1 Erik Dekker (Ned) Rabobank 2,339 pts
2 Erik Zabel (Ger) Telekom 2,181
3 Gilberto Simoni (Ita) Saeco-Longoni Sport 1,759
4 Paolo Bettini (Ita) Mapei-Quick Step 1,749
5 Lance Armstrong (USA) US Postal Service 1,718
6 Jan Ullrich (Ger) Telekom 1,705

Armstrong has only been in one event, Milan-San Remo, and came in 46th. All the others have been racing for a month or two already. Where do Armstrong's points come from?

Thanks,
Rich

Points are cumulative over the last 12 months...

http://www.uci.ch/english/

So, is it a rolling 12-month period? On any given day, is it a total of the past 12 months to that day?

Rich

I said somewhere else that the UCI regs made interesting reading, albeit difficult (as most legal documents are to a layman). So, after perusing the 2002 regs, I have located the following re your question(s):

At the end of each race,the total number of points obtained by each rider on the previous occasion when that same race was run shall be subtracted from the total points won up to that time. If,in the course of any given year,a race is not held or no longer counts towards the classification,the requisite number of points shall be subtracted on the date of the anniversary of the last time it was held. Points awarded during stages shall be taken into account only after the end of the race.

Notably absent from the regs, at least insofar as I could tell until I finally gave up, was any reference to the specifics of your question(s) regarding start and end points of the rankings.

However, the obvious implication in the above excerpts is that it is a rolling tally for a full year. But the granularity is, in fact, based upon the UCI racing calendar. That is (to the best of my ability), one gets one's first points when first placing in the points in a UCI race. The points then accumulate until that race occurs in the next calendar (or does not, in which case the anniversary date of the last running of that race is used), at which time the points from the prior running of that race are subtracted from the total.

It makes sense, except for the need for some of us anal retents (see another topic for that discussion) to have a reference to a real beginning, not just one implied from reading the fine print.

Always glad to help. ;)

Cheers...Gary

Thanks, Gary. It's quite clear now.

Rich