The Santos Women’s Tour Down Under barely resembles the race it was when it officially first started in 2016 as a 2.2 UCI-ranked event, spawned from what was effectively a collection of criteriums.
Initially, the field was held alongside the long-running men's race and was around 80 percent filled with riders from Australia and New Zealand, with only a limited number of squads making the trip from Europe. Few teams had the strength to truly challenge the Australian team that has now morphed into Liv-AlUla-Jayco. The squad dominated the event, winning four in a row from 2016 to 2019.
