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Five conclusions from the 2025 Tour Down Under

The racing is over and the celebration of 25 years too, as another double edition of the Tour Down Under opens the women’s and men’s WorldTour calendars in Australia and another pair of ochre-clad winners are crowned champions of their respective races.

This year it was Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly who claimed the top victories of the Australian summer, leading a podium full of international riders after tackling an array of stages which delivered some of the toughest terrain yet.

The victories were grasped amid a sense that the race has entered a new era. The ice stockings and vests were out in force, but the heat was not enough to dampen the power of the European professionals. They are clearly coming well prepared for whatever the Australian summer can dish out and the domination of the overall podiums by international riders provided plenty of evidence of that.

There was, as usual, plenty of insight to be drawn from the events in South Australia –  so let’s take a closer look at the takeaways, with five conclusions from the 2025 Tour Down Under.

“Each race is unique in its own way and I think a race like this that’s open all the way to the Queen stage and will be fought out via top battles  – that’s good.”

The competition to get one of those national team spots is high and once a rider grabs it you can be sure they will go all out, because as Rae-Szalinsky said “we are not just here to fill numbers”.

The salaries will also mean riders have a little more hope of having time to train optimally, rather than work like crazy when they are not racing to sustain themselves – a move that should help narrow the gap and therefore challenges of a peloton with disparate levels.

“For me, it means a lot for it means that I can live a bit more comfortably in Europe as it does mean a bigger salary for me, but it also means that there’s more opportunities for those continental girls over in Europe,” said Watts, who welcomed the creation of the development pathway.

“It was a very late regulation change, which has a massive impact on us being the first WorldTour event,” O’Grady told Cycling News before the start of stage 2. 

SOURCE: CyclingNews   (go to source)
AUTHOR: laura@cyclingnews.com
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