World’s best to take on our great race
THE top five ranked men’s teams in the world will converge on Geelong for January’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
And in a further boost, the women’s race will also feature the highest calibre women’s teams in the event’s history.
A staggering 16 men’s teams including BMC Racing Team, Team Sky, Trek-Segafredo, Team Sunweb and Quick-Step Floors have all con- firmed they will return to battle it out for UCI points on Geelong’s waterfront and coastal surrounds.
Those five teams have all ridden in the race before, but never as the top five ranked teams in the world.
The 113km women’s one day classic will have 15 teams heading to the start line on January 27.
Powerhouse Orica SCOTT will have a strong hand in the women’s race, but elite teams Wiggle High5 and WaowDeals Pro Cycling will also bring some of the world’s best female riders to the region.
Orica SCOTT has claimed the last two editions of the race with Annemiek van Vleuten (2017) and Amanda Spratt (2016).
Wiggle High5 has a strong contingent of Australian riders out to end Orica SCOTT’s dominance of the race.
“With three Australian riders in the team as well as the team owner and team director it is very exciting to have the rest of the world come to us for racing. As a local, I have trained and raced on the very roads used in the race and never tire of the scenery,” Wiggle High5 sports director Donna Rae-Szalinski said.
In a boost to the men’s field BMC Racing’s latest recruit and two-time Australian National Road Race champion Simon Gerrans is likely to lead his team’s chances on January 28.
“He was second this year and next year, with a strong team around him, we can go into the race with him as our leader,” BMC sports director Fabio Baldato said.
BMC will boast one of the strongest teams in the men’s race in 2018 with heavyweights Richie Porte and Danilo Wyss supporting Gerrans.
Union Cycliste Internationale Oceania president and UCI Women’s Commission president Tracey Gaudry said the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race was an event “the best in the business always want to race at”.
“This race has become an even more important fixture on the UCI Women’s Road Cycling Calendar, offering Australian fans the oppor- tunity to see the best of women’s cycling on an international scale,” she said.
Deakin University ViceChancellor Jane den Hollander said the university was proud to see how quickly the women’s race had grown.
Deakin has been a big supporter of the women’s race in particular.
“It’s going to be the most impressive line up ever for the women’s race,” Professor den Hollander said. “We are very pleased with the relationship we have with Cadel and the whole Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
“We focus on the women’s race because we see women’s sport is under recognised, under financed and pretty much ignored, yet we have many, many women at Deakin who do exercise nutrition, sport science, sport management.”
UCI WORLD TOUR ELITE MEN’S RACE (164KM) SUNDAY, 28 JANUARY, 2018 DEAKIN UNIVERSITY ELITE WOMEN’S RACE UCI 1.1 (113KM) SATURDAY, 27 JANUARY, 2018
• 12 WorldTour teams are confirmed to race the modern-day classic. • Three of the best Pro-Continental teams will compete for honours including Team Roompot, who is a classics specialist team, Aqua Blue Sport and Israel Cycling Academy. • The Australian National Team will race with the country’s youngest and brightest talent of the future. • 15 international and Australian women’s teams will race thewomen’s One Day Classic of the 2018 season. • First-time teams to the event, WaowDeals Pro Cycling, BePink, Team TIBCO-Silicon Valley Bank and Team Virtu Cycling Women, will be eager for an early season win. • The longstanding rivalry between Wiggle High5 and Orica SCOTT is expected to continue as World Time Trial Champion, Annemiek van Vleuten, sets out to defend her 2017 title.