The COVID-19 race cancellations of 2021 and 2022 put a severe dent within the evolution and progress of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race however 2025 sees the addition of the mid-week Surf Coast Classic races for women and men earlier than the WorldTour races on the weekend.
“But we’re right here at this time. In 2025 now we have a Women’s at some point Surf Coast Classic and the lads’s so we’re actually, actually pleased.” Race director Scott Sunderland mentioned with satisfaction after working to develop the races after the pandemic.
So too had been the riders on the rostrum of Wednesday’s girls’s race, who took benefit of one other alternative on this Australian block of racing to hone their race legs, scoop up extra factors and extra outcomes through the Australian summer time.
Ally Wollaston gave her new FDJ-Suez staff their first victory of the yr after a hard-fought battle.
“They had been actually racing exhausting, very quick, the crosswinds had been making it nervous for all of the riders,” Sunderland informed Cyclingnews in Torquay.
“The riders are saying to me, ‘that was powerful however we may nonetheless race’, and that is what we wish. We need the riders to take pleasure in it. We need the riders to need to really feel like they will assault it.”
The 118km occasion for the ladies and 157km for the lads, which is able to unfold on Thursday, is a far cry from the previous mid-week occasions just like the Albert Park kermesse or Race Torquay which performed out on a circuit. They present a much more becoming run towards the Classics, which lots of the riders in Australia are working in direction of.
“There’s not many Classics you experience that are not powerful however for the women who’re in entrance they had been racing exhausting. They needed this. They want this. It’s 120 kilometres. It’s not in direction of the 160 most, however it’s an excellent distance for everyone to have the ability to race,” mentioned Sunderland.
There had been a number of riders who did not make it to the top, with the ten kilometre climb firstly placing them on the again foot from the get go. It was clear what a charged battle was unfolding within the un-televised race, from the chatter over race radio and after the end.
There was a prolonged listing of splits, assaults and dropped riders but additionally some Herculean efforts to drag all of it again collectively.
“For 85% of the riders, it was a superb day trip,” mentioned Sunderland who can also be a race director for Flanders Classics in Belgium.
“A – they had been capable of race an ideal race. B – that is additionally going to set them up for the remainder of the yr as they transfer in direction of the subsequent Classics.
“It’s crucial that we’re ticking containers for everyone involved, and we’re elevating the bar as a result of, , we’re WorldTour degree right here [at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Races] and the identical groups are competing right here on the 1.1 as they’re on Saturday on the WorldTour so we need to ship a top quality occasion.”
Part of elevating the bar, can also be a goal for 2026 that can put extra status and factors on supply.
“Our purpose is to be at UCI ProSeries degree in 2026 with each the ladies’s and the lads’s race,” mentioned Sunderland.
“Not solely does it take us up in one other larger degree in sanctioning from the UCI but additionally, it exhibits that we imply enterprise in delivering the highest quality for the riders and giving them the most effective alternatives.”
The Australian racing racing continues with the lads’s Surf Coast Classic on Thursday after which on the weekend it’s the televised WorldTour degree Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. The girls’s race is on Saturday and on Sunday the lads’s unfolds.
Cyclingnews may have full protection of each races, with two journalists on the races, serving to to supply full race experiences, picture galleries, information and interviews.
