
There is a more than a week until the Tour Down Under opens the WorldTour season for 2026, but the first race on the UCI calendar this year is Venezuela's Vuelta al Táchira, which is still due to take place despite the recent surprise US military action in Caracas.
The strike on January 3 led to the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro Moro and his wife, Cilia Flores de Maduro, who are now in New York to face multiple charges related to drug trafficking.