The Complete Guide to Shopping in Australia

A lot has changed since the last edition of the Santos Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in early 2020, and we don’t know how long the impact of Covid-19 will be felt. However, Australia is now poised to reclaim its place at the start of the World Tour and Women’s World Tour, and in 2023, it will once again launch the first chapter of the 2023 season.

The women’s Tour Down Under is leading the nation by joining the men’s race at the highest level, giving top teams and female riders even more reasons to make the trip. There’s also plenty of men’s racing going on, and giving cycling fans across the country the chance to cheer on a local star, Jay Hindley (Bora Hanskrohe) is confirmed as one of the main contenders for the inaugural World Tour event.

However, before the World Tour races begin in South Australia, the first blows of the Australian summer will have already struck. On the first day of the year, the three-day Citroen Bay Crits will begin in Geelong, and the race to wear the green and gold stripes of the Australian champion will soon follow.

Then it’s necessary to return to join Adelaide and the Tour Down Under, before concluding with the women’s World Tour one-day races in January and the men’s World Tour during the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. The track and finish circuits are located around Geelong. In total, including time trials, there will be 11 race days for elite women and 14 race days for elite men.

Citroen Bay critics

• What: 3 days of criterium races
• When: January 1-3
• Location: Geelong
• Category: Pro criterium Men’s Elite and Women’s Elite

The Citroen Bay Grids open the Australian summer and the year’s UCI calendar. Given the time difference, it will be held at East Gardens in Geelong as Americans prepare to celebrate the New Year. The first three days of racing will be run around the 1.92km Eastern Gardens Criterium course in a clockwise direction of 50 minutes and three laps for men and women. The direction will be reversed on day two, with racing moving to a Hot Dog Cryarium course on Geelong’s Ritchie Boulevard for the evening finale.

The event, first held in 1989, will feature reigning champions Blake Quick and Ruby Rossman-Cannon, both members of BikeExchange-Jayco, and new recruit Quick will debut his team at the event. Australian road champion Luke Blapp will also be in the same team as Georgia Baker, who will race in the same team as reigning champion Roseman-Cannon, but given her speed and knowledge of the grids, she could be Plan A or Prime. Support Rossman-Cannon. It will also mark the farewell of former Australian Criterium champion and Bay Grids winner Brendan Jones.

Australian National Road Championship

• What: National titles for criterium, road racing and time trial.
• When: January 6-10
• Location: Around Ballarat and Buninyong
• Category: Elite Men and Elite/U23 Women, U23 Men and Junior Men and Women

The Australian National Road Championship returns with a vengeance in 2023. Despite still fighting hard, the isolation system and the difficulty of returning to Australia through closed borders due to the pandemic has deterred some from challenging for the national title in the past two years. However, with the arrival of several professional teams and the opening of borders for the next World Tour races, the peloton promises to be more complete. In the usual order of events, the races will begin with criteriums on Friday January 6 before moving to road races throughout the weekend – the women’s elite/U23 race and the men’s elite race on Sunday – then on Tuesday, the elite time trials will close the event, for clubs, para-athletes and the masters divisions. Also provides topics.

Defending elite road race champions Luke Blapp (Ineos Grenadiers) and Nicole Frein (Park Hotel Valkenburg) will have a tough task as they will be marked by the peloton, but they will be alone and there won’t be a companion between the two of them. teammates. Their local rivals, BikeExchange-Jayco, the only Australian team on the World Tour and Women’s World Tour, will be in action.

Tower below

WILLUNGA HILL, AUSTRALIA – JANUARY 29: Australia’s Richie Porte and Team Garmin Australia in the last race of his career at the 2nd Santos Festival of Cycling 2022 – Men’s Elite Stage 3 and 113.2km from McLaren Vale to 224. #TourDownUnder / January 29, 2022 at Willunga Hill, Australia. (Photo: Daniel Kallis/Getty Images)

• What: Criterium and stage races
• When: January 14 to 22
• Location: South Australia
• Category: Women’s World Tour and Men’s World Tour

After a two-year absence from the international calendar, the South Australian race is more important than ever. With the move to the Women’s World Tour, the women’s stage race now joins the men’s stage race. Both events will feature the world’s biggest teams. The races begin on Friday January 13 with the Schwalbe Classic, a women’s and men’s criterium, but an independent race that does not enter the calculation of the general classification of the upcoming rounds. The stage race begins with a three-stage women’s world tour on January 15-17, with one day for the sprinters at Altinga, another for the punchers – with a launch pad at Mount Lofty – and a finale for climbers who understand the tough climb. Corkscrew Road.

While the women’s race concludes on January 17, the men’s Santos Tour Down Under will begin with a prologue before continuing through five road stages that travel from Adelaide’s coast to the coast, the Adelaide Hills and the wine regions of the south. Australia. After the prologue, the race moves to Tanunda and the Barossa area for sprint stages, then the coast for Stage 2, and a series of tough climbs to Stage 3, which should be decisive for the general classification. The fourth stage heads towards Willunga, but luckily for the sprinters, it stops short of the iconic climb, opting for a fast finish in the township. Stage five offers a grand finale near Adelaide, with a finish at the top of Mt Lofty and a final showdown with the general classification keeping the suspense to the finish.

Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race

• What: One-day road races
• When: January 28 and 29
• Location: Geelong, Victoria
• Category: Women’s World Tour and Men’s World Tour

Following the conclusion of the races in South Australia, the riders head to Victoria to prepare for the final showdown in Geelong at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. On Saturday 28 January, the women first tackled the 143km course for the World Tour-rated Deakin University Elite Women’s Race, which starts in Geelong and winds through the agricultural hills in a typical change of direction. It then skirts the scenic but windswept coastline and heads back towards the start finish line before a local loop, which includes the often decisive climb of Sallambra Crescent. After completing the loop twice, the winner of the race, usually a solo runner or launched from a small group, is then crowned on the Geelong waterfront.

The men’s race on Sunday 29 January follows largely the same route, increasing the total distance to 176km and increasing the number of laps of the loop around Geelong. The men’s elite race takes place over four laps before crossing the line opposite the Steampacket Gardens waterfront. If the last event in 2020 was reduced to a team of two at the end of the event, it was most likely a restricted team sprint.

Following the crowning of the seventh winner of the men’s event, the European-based riders will be out for the rest of the season, while the local riders will settle in for the start of the Australian National Road Series. The 107th running of the 267km Melbourne-Warrnambool Classic and the 160km Warrnambool Women’s Cycling Classic takes place on the first weekend of February.

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