Five conclusions from the 2025 Tour Down Under

The racing is over and the celebration of 25 years too, as another double edition of the Tour Down Under opens the women’s and men’s WorldTour calendars in Australia and another pair of ochre-clad winners are crowned champions of their respective races.

This year it was Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Oatly who claimed the top victories of the Australian summer, leading a podium full of international riders after tackling an array of stages which delivered some of the toughest terrain yet.

The victories were grasped amid a sense that the race has entered a new era. The ice stockings and vests were out in force, but the heat was not enough to dampen the power of the European professionals. They are clearly coming well prepared for whatever the Australian summer can dish out and the domination of the overall podiums by international riders provided plenty of evidence of that.

The Australian riders, however, are hardly in a state of despair. Apart from the fact that Sam Welsford (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) once again delivered three stage wins, there were plenty of performances that inspired hope that a win is on its way, perhaps one that will be even more deeply valued because of the intensifying battle to get there.

There was, as usual, plenty of insight to be drawn from the events in South Australia –  so let’s take a closer look at the takeaways, with five conclusions from the 2025 Tour Down Under.

Despite reported reservations in Europe, teams still want to race Tour Down Under