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One-day WorldTour racing makes a dash this weekend at the Surf Coast of Victoria for each the women and men on the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race.
It is the tenth anniversary of the boys’s race on Sunday, with the ladies beginning the motion on Saturday from the waterfront in Geelong for an 8th version. Each fields proceed to swell with height contenders, now not simply to get off to a sizzling get started within the sultry Australian summer season however grasp a hefty haul of 300 UCI issues for the winners.
On Saturday, the similar 10 Ladies’s WorldTour squads line up once more from the outlet degree race at girls’s Excursion Down Below per week in the past, the place ProTeam EF Training-Oatly stamped their authority with a degree win and general victory with Noemi Rüegg. Two different rounds of one-day races – Schwalbe Ladies’s One Day Vintage and Surf Coast Vintage Ladies – have noticed other groups at the podium each and every time, so this can be a wide-open contest for the 141.8km race on Saturday, particularly with Visma-Hire a Motorbike and ultimate 12 months’s Cadel Evans Highway Race wonder winner Rosita Reijnhout final in Europe to begin their season.
Whilst males’s Excursion Down Below GC winner Jhonatan Narváez and his UAE Group Emirates-XRG squad have departed for Eu racing, as have 5 different WorldTour squads, there are nonetheless 11 top-tier squads plus one nationwide crew for the 183.8km showdown greater than 700 kilometres from Adelaide. The terrain favours the sprinters and opportunistic riders with rapid finishes on punchy hills.
Keys to each days will likely 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 will also be rewarded within the downhill run to the end.
The races have noticed other types of riders seal victories, from competitive assaults via all-rounders like Amanda Spratt and Dries Devenyns to wonder wins like Reijnhout and Peter Kennaugh. Particularly within the males’s race, continuously the end comes right down to a discounted pack of sprinters, such races received via Elia Viviani and Chloe Hosking.
Listed below are 10 riders to look at this weekend on the girls’s Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race and the boys’s Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race.
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Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race Ladies – height 5Noemi Rüegg (EF Training-Oatly)
Noemi Rüegg (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
It used to be a fantastic begin to the season for Noemi Rüegg and EF Training-Oatly, securing the primary Ladies’s WorldTour victory at the calendar on the Excursion Down Below.
Rüegg, 23 years outdated and from Switzerland, got here out swinging with a 6th position within the opener into Snapper Level, adopted via a victory on Willunga Hill and 3rd position in Stirling, the place she used to be topped the whole champion.
Rüegg is a formidable climber and can excel at the major ascent, Challambra at the Geelong circuit. Whilst the remainder of the course is predominantly flat, she has confirmed her power on each hilly and flatter terrain all over the Excursion Down Below and in main as much as this match.
She may also have the enhance of her teammates Megan Armitage, Babette van der Wolf, Sarah Roy, Henrietta Christie and doable contender Kim Cadzow.
Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco)
Silke Smulders (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Silke Smulders, a 23-year-old emerging skill out of the Netherlands, will lead the Liv-AlUla-Jayco crew on their house soil.
She has a cast probability at bringing her crew an early-season victory after a formidable show on the Excursion Down Below, the place she completed 2nd in two phases and secured 2nd position within the ultimate GC in the back of Rüegg.
However she additionally has a spread of teammates who will likely be in search of luck in January, together with Ruby Roseman-Gannon and Amber Pate, who lately received the nationwide criterium identify and completed 2nd within the time trial and 6th within the street race on the Australian Championships. Georgia Baker additionally simply completed 2nd on the new Schwalbe Ladies’s One Day Vintage after which 3rd in Torquay on the lead in match, the 1.1 ranked Surf Coast Vintage.
Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM zondacrypto)
Chloé Dygert (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Chloé Dygert has kicked off the season with a degree win in Stirling on the Excursion Down Below, and we will be able to be expecting to look extra luck from the two-time former time trial Global Champion. She briefly went on to complete 2nd on the Ladies’s Surf Coast Vintage 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 street racing. The Challambra most probably is not tricky sufficient to shed a rider as robust as Dygert, and we will be able to be expecting to look her contest for the win on the end must the race come right down to a small bunch.
The crew even have a tough climber in Neve Bradbury, who may make all of the distinction at the major ascent.
Elise Chabbey (FDJ-SUEZ)
Best friend Wollaston and Elise Chabbey and FDJ-SUEZ crew after successful Surf Coast Vintage 2025 (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
FDJ-SUEZ have probably the most most powerful groups with the likes of Elise Chabbey and Best friend Wollaston taking the place to begin.
Each riders have excelled all over the Australian summer season racing season with Chabbey securing 5th position general on the Excursion Down Below and Wollaston taking the win on the Surf Coast Vintage as whilst as a 2nd position on degree 1 of the Excursion Down Below..
The direction fits each riders, who excel on hilly terrain; whilst Wollaston is a cast choice if it comes right down to a discounted bunch – in particular given how smartly she treated the primary climb on Wednesday’s Surf Coast Vintage – Chabbey may well be a part of a a hit breakaway.
Dominika Włodarczyk (UAE Group ADQ)
Dominika Włodarczyk (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Dominika Włodarczyk completed 2nd position ultimate 12 months in the back of Visma-Hire a Motorbike’s Rosita Reijnhout, who isn’t in attendance this 12 months to shield her identify.
Włodarczyk, on the other hand, has had every other a hit begin to the 12 months all over the Australian summer season racing season after completing fourth general and two top-10 degree finishes on the Excursion Down Below.
She is in a just right place to have every other robust efficiency in Geelong with enhance from teammates like Sofia Bertizzolo and Erica Magnaldi.
There are different riders we will have decided on as contenders for the race, comparable to Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility), who used to be 3rd general on the Excursion Down Below and Clara Copponi (Lidl-Trek), who received the Schwalbe Ladies’s One Day Vintage, so look ahead to them, too, within the ultimate on the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race – Ladies.
Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race Males – height 5Sam Welsford (Crimson Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)
Sam Welsford confirms he received 3 phases at this 12 months’s Excursion Down Below (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Crimson Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe brings a few riders from the area riders to Geelong to guide the chase for the distinct, massive ‘C’ trophy that depicts an ocean wave. New Zealander and protecting champion Laurence Pithie received ultimate 12 months for DSM, however will or not it’s his Australian teammate Sam Welsford who will proceed his sizzling streak?
Welsford is on shape having received 3 phases at Excursion Down Below in addition to the Australian criterium championship and two home races. On a one-day race with slightly flat roads to the general circuit, he may benefit from a cast crew to take a look at and propel him to a last dash.
Then there’s a 2nd New Zealander, Finn Fisher-Black, who may additionally make his mark for the crew. He used to be 3rd on GC at Excursion Down Below with a couple of degree podiums. Then there could also be veteran sprinter Danny van Poppel, who gave Welsford the lead out on degree 6 in Adelaide, but in addition became himself within out for the groups GC goals at the Willunga Hill degree. He must be primary asset once more on Sunday.
Corbin Sturdy (Israel-Premier Tech)
Corbin Sturdy (Israel-Premier Tech) at the podium with 2nd position at 2024 Gran Piemonte (Symbol credit score: Tim de Waele/Getty Photographs)
Simply off the rostrum the previous two years, New Zealander Corbin Sturdy will likely be a part of a powerful squad from Israel-Premier Tech. He had 3 height 10s at Excursion Down Below, briefly choosing up the place he left off in 2024 when he received Giro del Veneto and used to be 2nd at Gran Piemonte in October.
Ultimate 12 months, Laurence Pithie jumped from his again wheel for the victory, so this 12 months, he’s motivated to step at the podium from fourth position. There might not be sufficient hiking for George Bennett and Michael Woods to scouse borrow clear of the peloton, however they must have the ability to usher Sturdy to contest in a dash end. Additionally allow us to now not put out of your mind that that is the crew that ultimate 12 months headed into the race recent from Excursion Down Below victory with Stephen Williams. The defence this 12 months did not end up somewhat the best way they will have was hoping which might ship that further little bit of motivation to make Sunday rely.
Oscar Onley (Group Picnic PostNL)
Oscar Onley (Group Picnic PostNL) competes all over 2025 Excursion Down Below (Symbol credit score: Dario Belingheri/Getty Photographs)
That is most effective Oscar Onley’s 2nd seek advice from to Australia to begin his season, and he has one thing to turn out at Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race. Ultimate 12 months, he crashed and broke his collarbone within the match, having hit the Surf Coast after successful the Willunga Hill degree on the Excursion Down Below.
This 12 months, the 22-year-old Briton completed 2nd at the similar mountaintop end on the season’s opening degree race, repeating with fourth on GC. He mentioned once more that whilst it used to be a just right begin to the season he sought after extra from the GC and the degree. On shape once more, he will glance to exhibit his explosive energy over the Challambra Crescent, and most likely this time to find extra.
Bryan Coquard (Cofidis)
Bryan Coquard (Cofidis) wins degree 4 of the Excursion Down Below (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
From the listing of sprinters, Bryan Coquard may well be the wonder winner in a box dash. The Cofids rider makes his debut at Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race in his thirteenth professional season.
Two times, he has competed at Excursion Down Below, and ultimate week, he completed 2nd within the issues classification in the back of Welsford via hanging up a degree 4 win and two different podiums.
He will even have Ion Izaguirre to enhance him at the ultimate circuits, replicating their teamwork from per week in the past.
Luke Plapp (Group Jayco-AlUla)
Luke Plapp (entrance) at the assault with Luke Durbridge on the Australian nationwide championships (Symbol credit score: Getty Photographs)
Australian programme Jayco-AlUla hasn’t ever had a rider win the Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race. 5 instances the crew has earned a place at the podium, with Daryl Impey going 3rd 3 times between 2018-2020. He is now on the race within the automotive with rival Israel-Premier Tech whilst sprinter Michael Matthews, fourth ultimate 12 months, began his season in Spain.
It’ll be as much as every other to make historical past for the house crew. Plapp could also be probably the most choices for this one-day journey thru Victorian farmland and coastlines. He has completed most effective fifteenth and sixteenth in his ultimate two editions, however ultimate 12 months he used to be at the comeback from a crash on the Excursion Down Below. This 12 months he is available in with 6th in GC at Excursion Down Below, together with fourth position at the Willunga Hill degree, his best possible profession effects at that degree race up to now.
Nonetheless there are a variety of different choices for the house crew, from Swiss champion Mauro Schmid, who used to be 14th when he ultimate rode the development in 2023 with Soudal-QuickStep. There there could also be Kelland O’Brien who may price forward to fortify on his twelfth of ultimate 12 months if he involves the road in a discounted staff.
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Publish date : 2025-01-30 00:12:47
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