{"id":411545,"date":"2026-01-14T04:38:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411545\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T04:38:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T04:38:11","slug":"australias-worldtour-races-are-no-longer-optional-heres-what-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/411545\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia\u2019s WorldTour races are no longer optional \u2013 here’s what that means"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Australia\u2019s<\/p>\n

News & Racing<\/a><\/p>\n

Before this year, WorldTour teams didn’t have to come to Cadel’s Race or the women’s Tour Down Under. Now they do.<\/p>\n

\"Matt<\/p>\n

When the Santos Tour Down Under gets underway later this week it will usher in a new era for the race, and for Australia\u2019s international road races more generally. For the first time ever, the women\u2019s Tour Down Under will feature the entire contingent of WorldTour teams \u2013 14 in all. That\u2019s a significant step up from the previous record of 10, set at last year\u2019s edition.<\/p>\n

It will be a similar story at the Mapei Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race at the end of the month. In 2026, for the first time ever, the women\u2019s race will have all WorldTour teams in attendance. The men\u2019s race, too, will have all 18 WorldTour teams on the startline for the first time \u2013 a step up from the previous record of 15, set in 2019.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s responsible for the sudden surge in the world\u2019s best teams coming to Australia? And what\u2019s the significance of that for the Tour Down Under and Cadel\u2019s Race, and for the teams?<\/p>\n

New rules<\/p>\n

In February 2025, the UCI announced a change to the rules<\/a> that dictate which races men\u2019s and women’s WorldTour teams (\u201cWorldTeams\u201d) must participate in from 2026 onward. Previously, a handful of WorldTour races (like Cadel\u2019s Race) weren\u2019t compulsory for WorldTour teams, but from this point on, all WorldTeams must effectively take part in all WorldTour events. The goal of this change, according to the UCI, was \u201censuring the participation of the world\u2019s best teams in all the most prestigious road events.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under the new rule, WorldTeams may now choose only one WorldTour event to skip each season, so long as that one event isn\u2019t one of the biggest races on the calendar* and so long as they don\u2019t skip the same race more than once every three years.<\/p>\n

Given there are two WorldTour events in Australia for men and women \u2013 the Tour Down Under and Cadel\u2019s Race \u2013 and given teams can only miss one WorldTour event per season, all WorldTour teams are now priced into coming to Australia, whether they want to or not.<\/p>\n

(*For men, the unskippable races are the Giro d\u2019Italia, Tour de France, Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and the five Monuments: Milan-San Remo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, and Il Lombardia. For women, the unskippable races are the Vuelta Espa\u00f1a Femenina, Giro d\u2019Italia Women, and the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift. You can read more in section 2.15.127 of the UCI’s regulations for road races<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

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\n News & Racing<\/a>
\n Tour Down Under<\/a>
\n Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race<\/a>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"News & Racing Before this year, WorldTour teams didn’t have to come to Cadel’s Race or the women’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411546,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-411545","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}