2023 UCI WorldTour: the peloton takes on a full season of thrilling action

Road cycling's leading series resumes in Australia, with the return of the Santos Tour Down Under, the first of 35 events on the UCI WorldTour calendar in 2023.

Excitement returns in Australia

After two years’ absence due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Santos Tour Down Under (January 17-23) will once again kick off the season. The event comes just a few months after Australia welcomed the 2022 UCI Road World Championships to Wollongong.

Rouleurs, sprinters, punchers and climbers will find varied opportunities to bring battle in the year’s first stage race, which will start from Adelaide with a 5.5km prologue. Five stages will follow along the Gulf of Saint-Vincent with three finishes favouring sprinters and two for puncher-climbers. Mount Lofty (683m) will be the new decider for this 23rd edition, with its 2.6km averaging at 7.3%.

The peloton will then remain Down Under with the return of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (January 29).

Classics and stage races: a thrilling European spring

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), winner of the 2022 UCI WorldTour individual ranking, is awaited in the United Arab Emirates to defend his crown on the UAE Tour (February 20-26). In the desert, he will face the Belgian prodigy and 2022 UCI World Champion Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step). The general classification specialists will then take to Europe for Paris-Nice (March 5-12), Jonas Vingegaard's first big test of the season, while his Jumbo-Visma partner Wout van Aert will refine his preparation towards the classics on the Italian roads of Tirreno-Adriatico (March 6-12).

The great classics campaign will open with the traditional Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite (February 25), followed by the unmissable Strade Bianche (March 4) and then the season’s first Monument: Milano-Sanremo (March 18). Big guns are already dreaming of shining on the Classic Brugge-De Panne (March 22) and the E3 Saxo-Bank Classic (March 24), quickly followed by Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields (March 26) and Dwaars door Vlaanderen – A Travers la Flandre (March 29).

Following these highlights of the spring season, it will already be time to tackle the second and third Monuments of the year: the Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres (April 2) and Paris-Roubaix (April 9).

Once the cobblestones have been crossed, hilly courses will dominate the demanding road towards the end of this classics campaign. In the Netherlands, the Amstel Gold Race (April 16) marks the transition towards the Ardennes before the punchiest riders make the most of the Mur de Huy at La Flèche Wallonne (April 19), just before the year’s fourth Monument, Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 23). Eschborn-Frankfurt will close this intense one-day racing campaign on May 1.

Grand Tour flavours

After Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico, the main players in stage races will go to Spain to take on the Catalan Pyrenees in the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (March 20-26). As always, the rough climbs of Itzulia Basque Country (April 3-8) will generate a great show. The peloton will then rise even higher, in the Swiss Alps, during the Tour de Romandie (April 25-30).

It will be the start of a delightful period for fans of the three-week races. The 106th Giro d'Italia will start on May 6 from the Abruzzo region, in Fossacesia, and will end on the 28th in Rome. The winner of the 2022 edition, Bora-Hansgrohe’s Jai Hindley, will try to defend his crown against the likes of Evenepoel and Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma), 3rd in his last participation, 2019.

Sunny days in European latitudes herald the Tour de France, preceded by the Critérium du Dauphiné (June 4-11). The French event will be followed by the Tour de Suisse (June 11-18), before the season’s second Grand Tour (July 1-23).

The Tour de France Grand Départ will be in Bilbao with three spectacular stages already offering plenty of elevation, before moving to the Pyrenees on day five. The Tour will then return to the Puy de Dôme volcano, which has not been climbed for 35 years. The Alps will also offer a superb playground for a rematch between Jonas Vingegaard, Tadej Pogačar and the many contenders who will try to stand in the way of the last two winners of the Grande Boucle.

As they also eye the UCI World Championships in Glasgow and across Scotland (Great Britain, August 3-13), the stars of the peloton will have little respite before hitting the Spanish roads of the Vuelta Ciclista a España, the last Grand Tour of the season, which this year will start in Barcelona and end in Madrid (August 26 - September 14).

A spectacular end to the season

Other major races will punctuate the end of the 2023 UCI WorldTour calendar. After the excitement of the Tour de France, the Basque Country will host another major day of battle with the Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa (July 29). The Tour of Poland will take place at the same time (July 29 - August 4).

The European summer also marks the return of one-day races with the BEMER Cyclassics, promised to sprinters (August 20), and the Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France (September 3), ahead of the Grand Prix Cycliste of Québec (September 8) and Montreal (September 10) on the other side of the Atlantic. Experts of the northern classics will also be able to shine on the tricky roads of the Benelux Tour (August 23-27).

Climbers will once again have pride of place on the occasion of the last Monument of 2023, Il Lombardia (October 7), before the final fireworks are to be launched in China at the Gree-Tour of Guangxi (October 12-17).

2023 UCI WorldTour calendar

  • 17-22 January: Santos Tour Down Under (AUS)

  • 29 January: Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (AUS)

  • 20-26 February: UAE Tour (UAE)

  • 25 February: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite (BEL)

  • 4 March: Strade Bianche (ITA)

  • 5-12 March: Paris-Nice (FRA)

  • 6-12 March: Tirreno-Adriatico (ITA)

  • 18 March: Milan-Sanremo (ITA)

  • 20-26 March: Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (ESP)

  • 22 March: Classic Brugge-De Panne (BEL)

  • 24 March: E3 Saxo Bank Classic (BEL)

  • 26 March: Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields (BEL)

  • 29 March: Dwars Door Vlaanderen - A travers la Flandre (BEL)

  • 2 April: Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres (BEL)

  • 3-8 April: Itzulia Basque Country (ESP)

  • 9 April: Paris-Roubaix (FRA)

  • 16 April: Amstel Gold Race (NED)

  • 19 April: La Flèche Wallonne (FRA)

  • 23 April: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (BEL)

  • 25-30 April: Tour de Romandie (SUI)

  • 1 May: Eschborn-Frankfurt (GER)

  • 6-28 May: Giro d'Italia (ITA)

  • 4-11 June: Critérium du Dauphiné (FRA)

  • 11-18 June: Tour de Suisse (SUI)

  • 1-23 July: Tour de France (FRA)

  • 29 July: Donostia San Sebastián Klasikoa (ESP)

  • 29 July - 4 August: Tour de Pologne (POL)

  • 20 August: BEMER Cyclassics (GER)

  • 23-27 August: Benelux Tour (BEL/NED)

  • 26 August -17 September: La Vuelta Ciclista a España (ESP)

  • 3 September: Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France (FRA)

  • 8 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec (CAN)

  • 10 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (CAN)

  • 7 October: Il Lombardia (ITA)

  • 12-17 October: Gree-Tour of Guangxi (CHN)