2003 UCI Road World Cup
The 2003 UCI Road World Cup was the fifteenth edition of the UCI Road World Cup. It had the same calendar of the 2000 edition.
The previous year winner, Paolo Bettini, was the big favourite of the competition and he begins with the win in the Milan-Sanremo with a great attack along Mirko Celestino and fellow teammate Luca Paolini escaping from the main group with the race's favourite, previous year winner and world champion, Mario Cipollini. However, an injury in the Gent–Wevelgem forced Bettini to miss all the other spring races.
Peter Van Petegem with an historic double Tour of Flanders - Paris-Roubaix, took the lead of the competition.
In the summer races, Bettini came back strong with a back-to back wins in the HEW Cyclassics, preceding the Tour de France runner-up Jan Ullrich, and in the Clásica de San Sebastián, with an all-italian top five. Bettini was almost sure of his second World Cup with the third place in Züri-Metzgete.
The autumn races saw Bettini, Van Petegem e Boogerd, the top three in the classification after Zurich, taking low positions in Paris-Tours and in Giro di Lombardia. The final podium saw Bettini with a high margin over Boogerd and Van Petegem, divided by only a single point.
Single races details
In the race results the leader jersey identify the rider who wore the jersey in the race.In the general classification table the jersey identify the leader after the race.
'''22 March 2003 — Milan–San Remo '''Final standingsSource:IndividualPoints are awarded to the top 25 classified riders. Riders must start at least 6 races to be classified.The points are awarded for every race using the following system:
TeamsPoints are awarded to the top 10 teams. Teams must start at least 8 races to be classified. The first 18 teams in world ranking must start in all races.The points are awarded for every race using the following system:
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