The Santos Tour Down Below route will characteristic some previous favourites in addition to new additions in 2025, because the South Australian race celebrates the twenty fifth working of the occasion which began in 1999.
The racing will begin with the Girls’s WorldTour opener, which units off from Brighton and heads towards a probable dash end in Aldinga on Friday January 17 after which on Saturday strikes right into a stage which finishes on the prime of Willunga Hill, the enduring climb which topped the winner in 2024.
“We noticed unbelievable vulnerability and emotion in so most of the athletes this yr, particularly Sarah Gigante as she gained up Willunga Hill – a climb that we are going to see girls sort out twice for the primary time in 2025,” race director Stuart O’Grady stated in a press release.
The ladies’s Tour Down Below will then conclude on an undulating stage by way of Stirling which, if the general battle is tight after Willunga, may nonetheless present a chance for some GC reshuffling.
The eye then turns to the boys’s WorldTour race, though spectators can have already had a style of the motion with the Down Below Basic criterium on the night of Saturday January 18.
“We’ve designed the routes to each problem the riders and provides followers the very best alternatives to get pleasure from all of the racing motion up shut,” O’Grady stated in a press release.
“A number of the thrilling new components within the males’s race will see them experience down the face of Willunga for the primary time adopted by two ascensions and a brand-new climb up Knotts Hill, Pound Street. Sensible crew ways can be essential for fulfillment on this version of the Santos Tour Down Below.”
Stage 1 on Tuesday January 21 from Prospect, will ship the primary of two levels that present a chance for the sprinters earlier than the brand new Pound Street climb is prone to open up the GC battle on stage 3. After stage 4 to Victor Harbor, stage 5 will probably resolve the general with its descent and two ascents of Willunga Hill.
The ultimate providing, one for the sprinters, pays homage to the race historical past because it finishes off the boys’s Tour Down Below on Sunday January 26 on a metropolis circuit in Adelaide. This was a stage which within the first version of the race 1999 was anticipated to attract a crowd of 15,000 although finally 40,000 packed the streets.
Within the intervening years, with 24 editions of the occasion and two years of a COVID-19 hiatus, the race has grown – with the introduction of the ladies’s occasion – and crowds have grown even additional. South Australia additionally launched an evaluation of this yr’s occasion as they launched the course for 2025.
“The financial advantages this iconic race has dropped at the state throughout its 25 years is excellent,” stated the state’s Minister for Tourism Zoe Bettison. “This yr’s race injected greater than $87 million into our state’s economic system, attracting a complete attendance of 770,600 whereas showcasing South Australia’s areas to thousands and thousands extra world wide by way of the published.”
Tour Down Below 2025
Girls’s race
Friday January 17 – Stage 1 from Brighton to Aldinga, 101.9kmSaturday January 18 – Stage 2 from Unley to Willunga, 115kmSunday January 19 – Stage 3 from Stirling to Stirling, 105.9km
Males’s race
Saturday January 18 – Down Below Basic, Adelaide East Finish, 55kmTuesday January 21 – Stage 1 from Prospect to Gumeracha, 150.7kmWednesday January 22 – Stage 2 from Tanunda to Tanunda, 128.8kmThursday January 23 – Stage 3 from Norwood to Uraidla, 147.5kmFriday January 24 – Stage 4 from Glenelg to Victor Harbor, 157.2kmSaturday January 25 – Stage 5 from McLaren Vale to Willunga Hill, 147.5kmSunday January 26 – Stage 6 in Adelaide, 90km
