Tour Down Under to stage men’s and women’s races on same course

The Santos Tour Down Under will make the sharpest structural change in its 26-year history in 2027, with men’s and women’s stages run concurrently from January 19 to 24, subject to final UCI calendar approval. For the first time in a UCI WorldTour race, both fields will use the same start and finish locations, the same routes and the same distances on corresponding days.

The men’s race will remain six stages long, from Tuesday through Sunday. The women’s race will be three stages, from Friday through Sunday, with women’s pelotons expected to roll out about 90 minutes after the men on matching race days. Organisers say specific stage start and finish locations will be announced later, but the format is already being sold as a single, shared spectacle rather than two separate events stitched together on the same week.

The push came from the UCI, after feedback from women’s teams, to cut the time those squads spend in Australia between the Tour Down Under and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and to compress the calendar. That makes the change more than a scheduling tweak. It shifts the women’s race closer to the center of the program, with the same roads and the same stage distances that frame the men’s event.

The Tour Down Under has already used its South Australian stage to push equity in a way few races have matched. In 2018, it became the first race in the world to offer equal prizemoney for women and men. Other major European races, including Paris-Roubaix, Tour of Flanders and Tour de Suisse, already stage men’s and women’s events on the same day, but still on different courses or over different distances.

Race director Stuart O’Grady said organisers saw the UCI request as an opportunity to create a more impactful spectacle and a “bumper final weekend of racing.” Assistant race director Carlee Taylor called it an “exciting new frontier” that would showcase the growth and progression of women’s cycling. Tourism Minister Emily Bourke said the announcement was groundbreaking for international cycling and would improve the fan experience by giving spectators two starts and two finishes on the same day.

The commercial case is already strong. The 2026 Santos Tour Down Under drew 749,953 spectators, generated $86.9 million in expenditure and added $51.2 million in value to the South Australian economy. The Barossa double-header stage lifted overnight stays by 79 per cent, while City of Adelaide Tour Village attendance rose 10 per cent to more than 70,000. Broadcast reach also climbed, with the men’s event reaching 1.42 million viewers around Australia and the women’s race reaching 757,000, up 50 per cent. Live coverage is expected again in 2027, and the new format will test whether same-course parity becomes a genuine reset for elite racing, or simply the most visible step toward one.