Ballarat and the Buninyong road race course of the Australian National Championships has been home to the battle for the green and gold striped jersey for nearly two decades, but that is likely to change in 2025. AusCycling has announced that while the regional Victorian city will host the event again in 2024 – from January 4 to January 7 – after that it will be looking elsewhere.
"Ballarat has been an incredible host of the Road National Championships for the past 18 years and we value our partnerships with City of Ballarat, Visit Victoria, Federation University and our other great sponsors," Kipp Kaufmann, AusCycling Executive General Manager Sport said in response to an email query from Cyclingnews.
"AusCycling has been undertaking a review focused on how we can best deliver a commercially sustainable calendar of events that delivers great experiences for our riders and fans, while also providing pathways for emerging talent and a stage for our most elite cyclists to showcase their skill. A key insight has been that the advancement of the Championships will require a change of location from time-to-time.
"We are seeking to host the Championships at other locations in Australia, commencing in 2025."
At the Ballarat event the criteriums are held on a hot-dog circuit in central Ballarat, with the time trials based around the Federation University Mount Helen campus and the road race on a circuit starting and finishing in the nearby town of Buninyong.
The pivotal feature of that circuit has long been the climb of Mount Buninyong Road, not too brutal on its own but it does have a tendency to shell the pure sprinters as the repetition takes its toll. It also provides a launching point for attacks, with both elite winners, Brodie Chapman and Luke Plapp, taking solo victories in 2023.
Many riders with a riding style that doesn't suit the Buninyong course, meaning the odds of earning a national title have always been stacked against them, are likely to be hoping that the change of venue also means a change of course style – perhaps a flatter course for the fast finishers or a summit finish at some stage for the pure climbers.
The plan to switch away from Ballarat as the host city in 2025, however, doesn't mean that there will not be a return to the packed Sturt St criteriums or the searing heat of Buninyong and its eucalypt and crowd lined climb.
"We value our collaborative relationship with AusCycling and acknowledge the positive impact the event has had on our city," said City of Ballarat Mayor, Cr Des Hudson in a media release. “We understand the AusCycling board has decided to rotate the event elsewhere throughout Australia to reflect the national status of the event. We are hopeful that it will return to Ballarat in the not too distant future.”
