One-day WorldTour racing makes a splash this weekend on the Surf Coast of Victoria for each the women and men on the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
It’s the tenth anniversary of the lads’s race on Sunday, with the ladies beginning the motion on Saturday from the waterfront in Geelong for an eighth version. Both fields proceed to swell with prime contenders, not simply to get off to a sizzling begin within the sultry Australian summer time however seize a hefty haul of 300 UCI factors for the winners.
On Saturday, the identical 10 Women’s WorldTour squads line up once more from the opening stage race at ladies’s Tour Down Under per week in the past, the place ProfessionalTeam EF Education-Oatly stamped their authority with a stage win and general victory with Noemi Rüegg. Two different rounds of one-day races – Schwalbe Women’s One Day Classic and Surf Coast Classic Women – have seen totally different groups on the rostrum every time, so it’s a wide-open contest for the 141.8km race on Saturday, particularly with Visma-Lease a Bike and final 12 months’s Cadel Evans Road Race shock winner Rosita Reijnhout remaining in Europe to start out their season.
While males’s Tour Down Under GC winner Jhonatan Narváez and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad have departed for European racing, as have 5 different WorldTour squads, there are nonetheless 11 top-tier squads plus one nationwide workforce for the 183.8km showdown greater than 700 kilometres from Adelaide. The terrain favours the sprinters and opportunistic riders with quick finishes on punchy hills.
Keys to each days can be end circuits that includes the Challambra Crescent ascent, the ladies making two passes of the climb and them 4 passes, the place assaults are anticipated, and dangers may be rewarded within the downhill run to the end.
The races have seen totally different kinds of riders seal victories, from aggressive assaults by all-rounders like Amanda Spratt and Dries Devenyns to shock wins like Reijnhout and Peter Kennaugh. Especially within the males’s race, typically the end comes all the way down to a lowered pack of sprinters, such races gained by Elia Viviani and Chloe Hosking.
Here are 10 riders to look at this weekend on the ladies’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and the lads’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
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Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race Women – prime 5
Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly)
It was an unbelievable begin to the season for Noemi Rüegg and EF Education-Oatly, securing the primary Women’s WorldTour victory on the calendar on the Tour Down Under.
Rüegg, 23 years previous and from Switzerland, got here out swinging with a sixth place within the opener into Snapper Point, adopted by a victory on Willunga Hill and third place in Stirling, the place she was topped the general champion.
Rüegg is a strong climber and can excel on the principle ascent, Challambra on the Geelong circuit. While the remainder of the route is predominantly flat, she has confirmed her energy on each hilly and flatter terrain through the Tour Down Under and in main as much as this occasion.
She may also have the help of her teammates Megan Armitage, Babette van der Wolf, Sarah Roy, Henrietta Christie and potential contender Kim Cadzow.
Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco)
Silke Smulders, a 23-year-old rising expertise out of the Netherlands, will lead the Liv-AlUla-Jayco workforce on their dwelling soil.
She has a stable probability at bringing her workforce an early-season victory after a strong show on the Tour Down Under, the place she completed second in two levels and secured second place within the closing GC behind Rüegg.
But she additionally has a variety of teammates who can be on the lookout for success in January, together with Ruby Roseman-Gannon and Amber Pate, who lately gained the nationwide criterium title and completed second within the time trial and sixth within the highway race on the Australian Championships. Georgia Baker additionally simply completed second on the new Schwalbe Women’s One Day Classic after which third in Torquay on the lead in occasion, the 1.1 ranked Surf Coast Classic.
Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto)
Chloé Dygert has kicked off the season with a stage win in Stirling on the Tour Down Under, and we are able to count on to see extra success from the two-time former time trial World Champion. She rapidly went on to complete second on the Women’s Surf Coast Classic in Torquay.
Dygert is a rider who can do all of it, from monitor racing to time trialling, and a contender in each flat and hilly terrain in highway racing. The Challambra possible is not powerful sufficient to shed a rider as robust as Dygert, and we are able to count on to see her contest for the win on the end ought to the race come all the way down to a small bunch.
The workforce even have a strong climber in Neve Bradbury, who may make all of the distinction on the principle ascent.
Elise Chabbey (FDJ-SUEZ)
FDJ-SUEZ have one of many strongest groups with the likes of Elise Chabbey and Ally Wollaston taking the beginning line.
Both riders have excelled through the Australian summer time racing season with Chabbey securing fifth place general on the Tour Down Under and Wollaston taking the win on the Surf Coast Classic as whereas as a second place on stage 1 of the Tour Down Under..
The course fits each riders, who excel on hilly terrain; whereas Wollaston is a stable possibility if it comes all the way down to a lowered bunch – notably given how properly she dealt with the primary climb on Wednesday’s Surf Coast Classic – Chabbey might be a part of a profitable breakaway.
Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Team ADQ)
Dominika Włodarczyk completed second place final 12 months behind Visma-Lease a Bike’s Rosita Reijnhout, who is just not in attendance this 12 months to defend her title.
Włodarczyk, nonetheless, has had one other profitable begin to the 12 months through the Australian summer time racing season after ending fourth general and two top-10 stage finishes on the Tour Down Under.
She is in a very good place to have one other robust efficiency in Geelong with help from teammates like Sofia Bertizzolo and Erica Magnaldi.
There are different riders we may have chosen as contenders for the race, resembling Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility), who was third general on the Tour Down Under and Clara Copponi (Lidl-Trek), who gained the Schwalbe Women’s One Day Classic, so look ahead to them, too, within the closing on the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Women.
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race Men – prime 5
Sam Welsford (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe brings a few riders from the area riders to Geelong to steer the chase for the distinct, large ‘C’ trophy that depicts an ocean wave. New Zealander and defending champion Laurence Pithie gained final 12 months for DSM, however will or not it’s his Australian teammate Sam Welsford who will proceed his sizzling streak?
Welsford is on kind having gained three levels at Tour Down Under in addition to the Australian criterium championship and two home races. On a one-day race with comparatively flat roads to the ultimate circuit, he may profit from a stable workforce to try to propel him to a closing dash.
Then there’s a second New Zealander, Finn Fisher-Black, who may additionally make his mark for the workforce. He was third on GC at Tour Down Under with a pair of stage podiums. Then there may be additionally veteran sprinter Danny van Poppel, who gave Welsford the lead out on stage 6 in Adelaide, but additionally turned himself inside out for the groups GC targets on the Willunga Hill stage. He ought to be main asset once more on Sunday.
Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech)
Just off the rostrum the previous two years, New Zealander Corbin Strong can be a part of a robust squad from Israel-Premier Tech. He had three prime 10s at Tour Down Under, rapidly selecting up the place he left off in 2024 when he gained Giro del Veneto and was second at Gran Piemonte in October.
Last 12 months, Laurence Pithie jumped from his again wheel for the victory, so this 12 months, he’s motivated to step on the rostrum from fourth place. There might not be sufficient climbing for George Bennett and Michael Woods to steal away from the peloton, however they need to be capable to usher Strong to contest in a dash end. Also allow us to not neglect that that is the workforce that final 12 months headed into the race recent from Tour Down Under victory with Stephen Williams. The defence this 12 months did not end up fairly the way in which they could have hoped which can ship that additional little bit of motivation to make Sunday depend.
Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL)
This is just Oscar Onley’s second go to to Australia to start out his season, and he has one thing to show at Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. Last 12 months, he crashed and broke his collarbone within the occasion, having hit the Surf Coast after successful the Willunga Hill stage on the Tour Down Under.
This 12 months, the 22-year-old Briton completed second on the identical mountaintop end on the season’s opening stage race, repeating with fourth on GC. He stated once more that whereas it was a very good begin to the season he needed extra from the GC and the stage. On kind once more, he’ll look to showcase his explosive energy over the Challambra Crescent, and maybe this time discover extra.
Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)
From the checklist of sprinters, Bryan Coquard might be the shock winner in a discipline dash. The Cofids rider makes his debut at Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in his thirteenth professional season.
Twice, he has competed at Tour Down Under, and final week, he completed second within the factors classification behind Welsford by placing up a stage 4 win and two different podiums.
He’ll even have Ion Izaguirre to help him on the ultimate circuits, replicating their teamwork from per week in the past.
Luke Plapp (Team Jayco-AlUla)
Australian programme Jayco-AlUla has by no means had a rider win the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. Five instances the workforce has earned a spot on the rostrum, with Daryl Impey going third thrice between 2018-2020. He’s now on the race within the automotive with rival Israel-Premier Tech whereas sprinter Michael Matthews, fourth final 12 months, began his season in Spain.
It can be as much as one other to make historical past for the house workforce. Plapp could also be one of many choices for this one-day journey by means of Victorian farmland and coastlines. He has completed solely fifteenth and sixteenth in his final two editions, however final 12 months he was on the comeback from a crash on the Tour Down Under. This 12 months he is available in with sixth in GC at Tour Down Under, together with fourth place on the Willunga Hill stage, his greatest profession outcomes at that stage race to date.
Still there are a selection of different choices for the house workforce, from Swiss champion Mauro Schmid, who was 14th when he final rode the occasion in 2023 with Soudal-QuickStep. There there may be additionally Kelland O’Brien who may cost forward to enhance on his twelfth of final 12 months if he involves the road in a lowered group.