It’s a bright new dawn for the UCI WorldTour peloton as the professional road season starts in Australia. The Santos Tour Down Under (21-26 January) will launch the UCI’s leading series of men’s road cycling races which promises intent battles through until October with 36 races adding up to 172 days of competition around the world.
From the Santos Tour Down Under to the Gree-Tour of Guangxi, through Monuments and Grand Tours, almost all the events of the UCI WorldTour have been established for years, if not decades, but there’s also a newcomer for 2025. The Copenhagen Sprint (21 and 22 June) is set to bring together stars of the UCI WorldTour and UCI Women’s WorldTour in the same area that caught the world’s attention with the Grand Départ of the 2022 Tour de France.
And the stakes rise even higher this season with teams battling to meet the sporting criteria - based on the UCI Team Ranking from 2023 until the end of 2025 - that will define the 18 teams that will receive a UCI WorldTeam licence for the following three years and thus be part of the elite division of men’s road cycling until 2028.
From Down Under to Europe
As per tradition, the decisive action begins in Australia with the Santos Tour Down Under quickly followed by the first one-day event of the season, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (2 February). It’s a great setting to show how high one may punch for the rest of the year, as illustrated by Stephen Williams and Laurence Pithie ahead of their breakthrough seasons in 2024.
Last year’s UAE Tour crowned an up-and-coming star in Lennert van Eetvelt, who is gearing up to defend his Emirati victory. But there’s another former winner of the UAE Tour who is set to return to the desert: UCI World Champion Tadej Pogačar, who won the race in 2021 and 2022 before missing out on the 2023 and 2024 editions.
In 2025, the Slovenian star prepares to compete in the United Arab Emirates (17-23 February) before turning his attention to the spring Classics, with his personal schedule featuring eight of the thirteen UCI WorldTour one-day races held in Europe from the Omloop Nieuwsblad (1 March) until Eschborn-Frankfurt (1 May).
Among his main targets are Milano-Sanremo (22 March), then a maiden participation in Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields (30 March) ahead of his return to the Ronde van Vlaanderen (6 April), followed by a thrilling treble: the Amstel Gold Race (20 April), La Flèche Wallonne (23 April) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (27 April).
Grand Tour action
In this first part of the season, fans’ attention will be focused not only on events targeted by Pogačar, but also on iconic one-day races such as Paris-Roubaix (13 April), and the early-season stage races such as Paris-Nice (9-16 March), Tirreno-Adriatico (10-16 March), Itzulia Basque Country (7-12 April) and the Tour de Romandie (29 April-04 May).
Then it’s time for the first Grand Tour of the season, the Giro d’Italia (9 May-1 June). An unprecedented Grande Partenza around Tirana will represent the UCI WorldTour’s first visit to Albania, three weeks before the grand finale in Roma, where Pogačar’s successor will be crowned.
June will see hopeful contenders gear up ahead of the Tour de France (5-27 July), with traditional stage races in the Alps – the Critérium du Dauphiné (8-15 June) and the Tour de Suisse (15-22 June) – followed by the new one-day race, Copenhagen Sprint (22 June), designed for powerful fast men. The peloton will then align in Lille, for the Grand Départ of the 2025 Tour de France (5-27 July), returning to Paris for its conclusion after the final stage of the 2024 edition was moved to Nice.
Just four weeks later, the last Grand Tour of the season, La Vuelta Ciclista a España (23 August-14 September), will start from Italy before making its way to Spain for a mountainous festival culminating at La Bola del Mundo on the eve of the finish in Madrid.
A thrilling conclusion
In between the Tour and La Vuelta, the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa (2 August) will deliver punchy action in Spain. Classics specialists can also aim for the ADAC Cyclassics (17 August), the Bretagne Classic-Ouest France (31 August), and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec (12 September) and Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (14 September). And strong riders who shine in one-day races also often find their way to the fore in the Renewi Tour (20-24 August), while Jonas Vingegaard is the defending champion in the Tour de Pologne (4-10 August).
After the UCI Road World Championships in Kigali, Rwanda (21-28 September), riders will battle for the last prizes of the season with the final Monument, Il Lombardia (11 October), and the year’s concluding stage race, the Gree-Tour of Guangxi (14-19 October).
By the time we reach China, many riders will have illuminated the roads of the UCI WorldTour right around the globe. And the action all begins in Australia in just a few days.