Once for South Australia, it was the Formula 1 Grand Prix that was the crowning jewel of sporting events, but its loss to Melbourne turned out to be Australian cycling’s gain – it delivered a clear opening for the state to soon get behind a very different type of race, the Tour Down Under.
What started as a men’s event in 1999 has changed considerably in the past 26 years, with the race now kickstarting both the men’s and women’s WorldTour seasons, and featuring all 14 top-tier women's squads for the first time in 2026.
"In its first years, it was such a big step in Australian cycling but maybe it was seen as a race that was a wonderful holiday and a lot of fun but with the WorldTour status, it's just evolving each year," said Michael Rogers, who raced the event ten times, won it in 2002 and has since returned with Lidl-Trek, having taken on a new role as management assistant in 2024.
"The teams come here to race now, to get points, whereas probably in its first years, it was considered more of a training race to get used to the European season. It's been quite an evolution."
An evolution that can be seen in a myriad of ways. On top of the men’s and women’s WorldTour events, the race added a new 1.Pro ranked women’s one-day race in 2025 and presented a festival with an ever-growing array of supporting events – from a mass participation ride that gives amateurs the chance to ride the same course as the professionals, to gravel races and street parties.
It’s a formula that drew 807,900 visitors in 2025 - the largest since 2018 - and generated $62.5 million for the state of South Australia's economy, but, of course, its core purpose will always be the top-level racing.
Internationalisation
It’s what draws so many spectators, like Peter Tyquin, to the event again and again. Having attended more than 20 years ago, he returned in 2025, making the long trip all the way down from northern Queensland, around 2,000km away, to get Stuart O’Grady to freshen up the signature on a Credit Agricole jersey he originally signed in 2001. O'Grady was then on his way to a second overall victory at the event, where he is now race director.
He stepped into the role ahead of the COVID-19 cancellations of the WorldTour events, though even then, the race continued on in a different guise. Organisers opted to deliver the Santos Festival of Cycling to give domestic riders, whose opportunities were severely curtailed by the restrictions of the pandemic, a world-class racing experience. Then, when the event hit the WorldTour level once again, this time at both the men’s and women’s events, a new era hit its stride.
"We've had the Richie Porte era, we've had the Simon Gerrans domination, but this year felt like a real international Santos Tour Down Under," O’Grady said last year, by the banks of the Torrens River in Adelaide after the sixth and final stage of the men’s WorldTour event and the new 1.Pro women’s race had played out on Sunday. "The Aussies have been challenged across the women's and the men's [races], which means the quality of the field, the level of racing and rider, is better.
An overall podium that was once heavy with domestic stars, in 2025, had none. Ecuadorian Champion Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) claimed the ochre jersey of the men’s event, with Spain's Javier Romo (Movistar) second and New Zealand’s Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) third. In the women’s Tour Down Under, Swiss rider Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly) finished in ochre, with the Dutch Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla Jayco) second and Norwegian rider Mie Bjørndal Ottestad (Uno-X Mobility) in third.
"It just goes to show how, I guess, the guys and girls are really coming here focused on trying to win stages, to get those incredibly important UCI points," added O’Grady.
The courses are also evolving, with riders broadly pointing to the fact that 2025 was a particularly challenging year in the race, and O’Grady adding "that Willunga stage was probably one of the toughest we’ve ever had." However, it's also a matter of keeping the balance in place, given the early-season time slot and potential for extreme temperatures.
Though the biggest changes are probably afoot in the women’s racing at the event, which kicked off in 2011 with a series of criteriums and morphed into a UCI 2.2 tour in 2016, before upgrading to 2.1 status in 2018, when it also led the way by offering the same prize money as the men. Then, in 2023, it hit the top-tier with WorldTour status, before the race added another day of UCI racing to the three-stage tour, with a 1.Pro race during the 2025 event.
The 2026 edition will see the event jump up yet another level due to a UCI rule change allowing top-tier squads to skip just one Women's WorldTour event each season. This means that all 14 Women's WorldTour teams will be present on the start line in Adelaide for the first time, adding even more firepower to the peloton in South Australia.
"It just means that the progression of the racing is just going to keep lifting, and we're going to be able to, hopefully, continue to progress and add perhaps another stage into our WorldTour event," said assistant race director Annette Edmondson during last year's edition, before the rule change was announced. "At the moment, we're focusing on our sustainable progression as well. Changes don't happen overnight, and we're very proud that Santos, our major sponsor, is really prioritising the growth of the women's race."
Last year's edition also saw the event's title sponsor, Santos, who have been supporting the race since 2010, lock in an agreement until 2028, ensuring, in an era where a number of races have fallen by the wayside due to lack of funds, that the Australian women’s and men’s WorldTour race remains on a firm footing.
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