Updated January 16, 2026 05:45AM
Breathe a collective sigh of relief. After a long dark winter of contract chat and cyclocross, the Santos Tour Down Under is here to save our road cycling souls.
And this year more than ever, the men’s and women’s Aussie races aren’t just tan-refining rust busters.
Starting Saturday at the Women’s Tour Down Under, the chapter opens on some of the key narratives of the new season.
World champions,Tour Down Under winners,and some of the peloton’s most hotly hyped riders will be looking to set the tone early. Super teams will be scrambling to assert supremacy. And of course, we get to take a look at all the controversial 2026 kits.
Here’s what you need to know about the men’s and women’s Tour Down Under, and why the Aussie block matters.
women’s Tour Down Under: Jan 17-19
- 2025 winner: Noemi Rüegg
- 3 stages: 1 x sprint, 2 x hilly intermediate
- 2026 headliners: Rüegg, Vallieres, Dygert, Bradbury, Roseman-Gannon, Garcia, Spratt
Men’s Tour Down Under: Jan 20-25
- 2025 winner: Jhonatan Narváez
- 6 stages: 1 x prologue, 1 x sprint, 2 x hilly/intermediate, 2 x GC slugfests
- 2026 headliners: Narváez, Vine, Brennan, O’Connor, Plapp, Lamperti
Women’s one-day race: Jan 21
- 2025 winner: N/A – first edition
- 2026 headliners: As above for stage race
1: UAE Emirates and the pressure to repeat
UAE Emirates-XRG wiped the floor with everyone and set a new stage-win record in 2025, and it’s looking to do it all over again in 2026.
And while the Emirati super crew isn’t sending Tadej Pogačar Down Under, the WorldTour dominator has flown out a typically ridiculous roster topped by defending champion Jhonatan Nárvaez.
The plan?
Win.
“2025 was an incredible season for our whole team – we showed how strong and united we are,” Narváez said. “Now we start again from zero, with the same ambition and hunger to keep building on that success.
“I’m motivated, the team is in great shape, and we’re ready to race hard together for another big result here in Australia.”
Victory at the first WorldTour stage race of the season will set the tone for UAE before the rainbow jersey big dog steps in later in spring.
2: The SD Warpath begins
SD Worx-Protime lines out at the Tour Down Under for the first time on Saturday as it debuts a season with an overarching mission to remind everyone who’s the OG powerhouse of the women’s peloton.
“For nine years, we were the number 1 in the world ranking. Then, last year, we ended in second place. A lot of teams chased us, so now we’re going to chase them,” team manager Erwin Janssen recently said at the squad’s launch event.
Former SD Worx rider demi Vollering crushed the UCI league for her French team last year with a harvest of stage-racing victories.
And of course, that didn’t go down well with a Dutch crew that dominated the past decade.
That’s why this year, SD Worx wants the UCI rankings, the individual wins, and everything else in between.
Femke Gerritse leads a team without a GC favorite, but rivals be warned – the SD Worx-Protime warpath begins in Australia.
“We’ve come here to win. It’s good for the whole team if we can grab an early victory here,” Gerritse said of the Tour Down Under.
“When we left home, we felt that the whole group was behind us. they waved us off with motivating words. That was really cool and gave us confidence.”
3: Boy wonder Brennan begins super-hype season
matthew Brennan booted down the door of his WorldTour career last year when he sprinted to second on the opening stage of the TDU.
This year,he’s back,one year wiser,wanting a whole lot more.
the 20-year-old leads Visma-Lease a Bike into a race loaded with stages suited to his crazy fast finishing kick. He’ll have marked stages 1, 2, 5, and the GC already, and he’s already plotting how to win them.
“I got super close to taking my first WorldTour victory last year [at TDU], and that fueled me on for a lot more,” Brennan said this week from his team camp.
“This year it would be nice to stretch the legs again and see what we can do,” he continued. “Now I can focus on who to follow and where to be at what time. I think that will be really beneficial to making those next steps to win a few stages.”
Watch Brennan closely next week. He’s one of the hottest prospects in pro cycling right now.
Only Isaac del Toro and Paul Seixas carry more hype into the 2026 season than Britain’s boy wonder.
In fact, Visma-Lease a Bike is so excited it just handed Brennan a mega-contract through 2029 and a marquee role alongside Wout van aert in San Remo, Flanders, and Roubaix.
Down Under will be the perfect place for the Brennan to warm his legs ahead of a possibly bulldozing ride across the classics.
4: New jersey and new ambition for Vallieres
Wildcard world champion Magdeliene Vallieres brings a fresh set of Assos-designed rainbow bands and a whole new ambition to the Tour Down Under.
the breakout Canadian will line up for EF Education-Oatly alongside defending champion Noemi Rüegg on Saturday, and they both want to show last year was no fluke.
“The first race of the season will be great to show the new kit early and kick things off on a positive note,” Vallieres said.
“I’m excited to race in the world champion jersey in front of the Australian crowd.”
Vallieres revealed last autumn that her shock world title emboldened her to shoot for the stars in 2026.
The 24-year-old is planning to broaden her GC horizons and chase her own ambitions in the Ardennes this year. It would hardly seem right for this long-time domestique to be handing up bottles in a set of rainbow bands, after all.
Vallieres cautioned that “Project Mags” won’t begin on Saturday in australia – Rüegg’s title defense is the priority.
But don’t be surprised if those rainbow bands inspire her to step up several levels. Domestique underdog? no more.
5: Jayco-AlUla’s Aussie redemption
Jayco-AlUla men’s team needs to turn things upright Down Under.
Luke Plapp and Luke Durbridge just wrestled defeat from the jaws of victory at the national championships. Ben O’Connor has been cursing a frustrating debut season after he was the marquee signing of 2025. And beyond that, the entire squad suffered a WorldTour season short of wins and big on key exits.
Talismanic director Matt White was shown the back door, grand tour stage-winners Eddie Dunbar, Chris Harper, and Dylan Groenewegen left, and veteran captains Alessandro de Marchi and Michael Hepburn retired.
There’s no better place for the team to reset than on home soil. If the beers ‘n’ BBQs of Australia’s “summer of cycling” don’t inspire a comeback next week, nothing will.
National championship antiheroes “Plappy” and “Durbo” join O’Connor at a Tour Down Under team that’s high on motivation and hoping to avoid another tactical disasterclass.
“We have a super strong squad, and we’re excited to take them to Tour Down under,” said sport director Matt Hayman. “With a team like this, we’ve got to be expecting to get some results.”
