Cycling Weekly's all-time ranking of British pro riders
- Wednesday, 4 March 2009
- 3 Comments
Who is the best British male rider of all-time?
Cycling Weekly has devised a ranking system to try to answer the question once for all.
Our list will no doubt create controversy because many British cycling fans are divided. Is Tom Simpson the greatest Briton, or should it be Robert Millar?
Last year we unveiled our all-time list of British pro winners, a league table of riders ranked according to the number of top professional race victories they’ve achieved.
As many readers pointed out, ranking purely by wins isn’t necessarily the best system to determine who’s the greatest. Chris Boardman tops the league with 41, but Simpson won many of the very biggest one-day races in the world, and Robert Millar, with just 16 victories, is surely Britain’s best stage racer of all-time.
So, we’ve spent ages devising a points system that is weighted towards rewarding success in the biggest and most prestigious races.
And we’ve recognised the importance of wearing the leader’s jersey in a grand tour or winning the king of the mountains or points competitions by awarding points for these achievements too.
Then we scoured the record books for every result that counts towards our list since racing resumed after World War Two, and we’ve come up with Cycling Weekly’s All-Time British Ranking.
Let the debate commence.
| CYCLING WEEKLY’S ALL-TIME RANKING |
Last update August 10, 2009. Ranking will be updated once a month.
1 ROBERT MILLAR 2,900 points
Pro: 1980-95
2 Tom Simpson 2,545 points
Pro: 1958-1967
3 Chris Boardman 1,965 points
Pro: 1993-2000
4 Barry Hoban 1,455 points
Pro: 1962-1981
5 Mark Cavendish 1,270 points
Pro: 2007-present
6 David Millar 1,100 points*
Pro: 1997-present
7 Michael Wright 800 points
Pro: 1962-1976
8 Max Sciandri 675 points **
Pro: raced as a British rider 1995-2004
9 Sean Yates 635 points
Pro: 1982-1996
10 Brian Robinson 605 points
Pro: 1952-1963
11 Malcolm Elliott 380 points
Pro: 1984-1997
12 Bradley Wiggins 345 points
Pro: 2002-present
13 Roger Hammond 230 points
Pro: 1998-present
14 Jeremy Hunt 220 points
Pro: 1996-present
15 Vin Denson 155 points
Pro: 1959-1969
16 Alan Ramsbottom 150 points
Pro: 1961-1966
17= Graham Jones 120 points
Pro: 1979-1988
17= Paul Sherwen 120 points
Pro: 1978-1987
David Millar: Points for results that were stripped after admitting he had doped are not included (for example world time trial championship 2003).
Max Sciandri: Only points scored from 1995 onwards, when Sciandri took out a British racing licence, are included.
Scroll down to see how the points have been allocated
| ANALYSING CW'S RANKING |
He's the only British rider to have finished on the podium at the Giro d'Italia (second in 1987) and the Vuelta a Espana (second in 1985 and 1986). Millar's fourth place in the 1984 Tour de France is the highest by a British rider. That year he also won the polka-dot jersey as king of the mountains.
That Millar was Britain's greatest ever stage racer can be in little doubt. But it wasn't just in the grand tours that Millar excelled. He also won the Dauphiné Libéré (1990) and Tour of Catalonia (1985). His best one-day performances were sixth in the World Road Race Championships in Barcelona in 1984, and third in the 1988 Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Debate usually boils down to whether Millar or Tom Simpson deserves to be recognised as the greatest Briton, and while the Scot's grand tour performances give him the edge in our ranking, there is no doubt Simpson's palmares is stronger.
In the 1960s he won the world professional road race title and three of the one-day races universally recognised as the monuments of cycling – Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and the Tour of Lombardy. Add to that a sixth-place finish in the Tour de France and a string of other top ten finishes in the Classics.
Many fans still consider Chris Boardman to have been a time trial specialist with very few other strings to his bow, but a closer examination of his career shows that to be an unfair assessment.
Yes, the great majority of Boardman's 41 wins were achieved in time trial stages, and he never made an impression on the general classification of the Tour de France or the one-day Classics. But he did finish second and fifth overall in the Dauphiné Libéré and third in Paris-Nice, results which are sometimes overlooked.
In fourth place is Barry Hoban, who clocked up a lot of points by winning eight stages of the Tour de France and Ghent-Wevelgem but was also third in the Tour's green jersey competition one year, as well as third in Paris-Roubaix and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
David Millar is the highest-ranked rider who is still currently active.
Michael Wright, who was British born but lived most of his life in Belgium, is usually considered a sprinter and Classics rider, but he was also fifth overall in the 1969 Vuelta a Espana.
In seventh place is Max Sciandri who switched nationality from Italian to British in the mid-1990s and had a good record in one-day races. Some may be surprised to see Sean Yates, who was considered to be a domestique, so high, but he had a long career spanning 15 seasons and won some big races. Among his victories were stages of the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana and Paris-Nice, as well as the Tour of Belgium's overall title. He was also second at Ghent-Wevelgem, behind Gerrit Solleveld in 1988, and fifth in Paris-Roubaix.
Brian Robinson can be seen as one of the pioneers of British cycling. He went to France and made an impact in the 1950s, paving the way for the Simpson generation to try to make a living in the sport. Robinson was a respected team worker, but he won too, most notably the Dauphiné Libéré in 1961 and a stage in the Tour de France. He was also third in the 1957 Milan-San Remo, at the time a truly jaw-dropping achievement.
Completing the top ten is a rider who is sure to rocket up the rankings in the coming years. In just two seasons Mark Cavendish has already made history. He's the first British rider to win four stages in a single Tour de France. In terms of pure victories, he's only months away from challenging Chris Boardman for the top spot.
But the scale of Cavendish's wins are not yet on the same level as the likes of Simpson or Hoban. To score really big points he needs more grand tour stage victories and some major performances in the one-day Classics.
| POINTS-SCORING SYSTEM |
Overall top 20 score: 250, 225, 200, 180, 160, 150, 140, 130, 120, 110, 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 25, 20
Stages, top three score: 50, 10, 5
Final KOM and points competition, top three score: 50, 10, 5
Bonus for each day in leader’s jersey: 25
Bonus for completing the Tour, but finishing outside top 20: 10
GIRO D’ITALIA
Overall top 15 score: 200, 175, 150, 130, 110, 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10
Stages, winner scores: 30
Final KOM and points competition, winner scores: 30
Bonus for each day in leader’s jersey: 15
Bonus for completing the race, but finishing outside top 15: 5
CATEGORY A STAGE RACES
Paris-Nice, Dauphiné Libéré, Tour of Switzerland
Overall top five score: 110, 75, 60, 40, 20
Stages, winner scores: 20
CATEGORY B STAGE RACES
Tirreno-Adriatico, Criterium International, Tour of the Basque Country, Tour of Romandie, Tour of Catalonia, Tour of Germany, Midi Libre (defunct)
Overall top three score: 60, 40, 20
Stages, winner scores: 15
CATEGORY C STAGE RACES
includes, Tour of California, Four Days of Dunkirk, Eneco Tour, Tour of Belgium, Tour of Portugal
Overall, top three score: 40, 20, 10
Stages, winner scores: 10
CATEGORY D STAGE RACES
All other stage races
Overall, winner scores: 10
Stages, winner scores: 5
WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, OLYMPIC GAMES, MONUMENTS
World Championship road race and time trial, elite era Olympic Games road race and time trial (1996-date), Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Tour of Lombardy
Top 15 score: 200, 150, 100, 90, 80, 70, 60, 50, 40, 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, 5
CATEGORY A ONE-DAY RACES
Ghent-Wevelgem, Amstel Gold Race, Flèche Wallonne, Paris-Tours
Top 10 score: 110, 75, 60, 50, 40, 30, 25, 15, 10, 5
CATEGORY B ONE-DAY RACES
Het Volk, Vattenfalls Cyclassics, San Sebastian Classic, GP Plouay, British World Cup (defunct), GP Americas (defunct), GP des Nations (defunct)
Top three score: 60, 40, 20
CATEGORY C ONE-DAY RACES
including Scheldeprijs, Henninger Turm, Giro del Lazio, Paris-Brussels, Milan-Turin
Top three score: 40, 20, 10
CATEGORY D ONE-DAY RACES
All other one-day races, including British National RR and TT Championships
Winner scores: 10
Reader comments
Add your commentsJune 18 21:29
Dick Phillips
How can you call this an all time ranking of British Pro riders, when it is restricted to roadmen, and is only post-1945? Nothing wrong with the concept, but the title contradicrts the content..
June 22 20:28
Mike Revill
On actual results the rankings seem fair enough .People forget how consistent Robert Millar was over his career. No disrespect to Chris Boardman his achievements were fantastic,especially for a clean rider, however i think Barry Hoban should be ranked higher but that's only my opinion. Regarding Mark Cavendish the world is his oyster, an awesome career ahead of him.
August 07 15:35
Stirlo
I cna't wrk out where Wiggins has won 160 points, at least before this year's Tour. If he really had 160, comine diwth the 185 he picked up in France, that takes him to 12th already. And he will rise quickly on this ranking system. A few more top 10s in the Tour and he'll be right up there.Would be nice to see an update of these rankings.