After so a few years the place the inexperienced and gold stripes of the Australian highway titles have been awarded within the Victorian regional metropolis of Ballarat, change is on the horizon with AusCycling saying on Monday that the Highway Nationwide Championships might be held practically 3,000km away in Perth as a substitute.
What’s extra, it isn’t simply the 2025 occasion that might be heading to Western Australia’s capital in January however the competitors to say a inexperienced and gold jersey may even run there proper by to 2027.
“We’ve seen some epic battles in recent times,” mentioned AusCycling CEO Marne Fechner in an announcement. “Perth will now turn out to be a part of biking lore and we are able to’t wait to see what tales unfold over the approaching years.”
Western Australia has been ever current within the consciousness of Australian biking followers in recent times, and has been extensively rumoured to be the subsequent location of the championships for a while. It’s residence to most of the nation’s prime performers on the world stage, from Jai Hindley to Sam Welsford. “I grew up coaching and racing on these roads and the chance to race for the celebrated green-and-gold jersey in entrance of family and friends may be very particular,” mentioned Welsford, the current winner of three Tour Down Below levels.
The occasion – which includes of criteriums, time trials and a highway race – will run in central Perth, together with within the interior metropolis Kings Park. It is the primary shift in venue in practically 20 years because the nationwide title races had been first held in Ballarat and its surrounds in 2002 and it had been working there for 19 consecutive years.
Town centre criterium and Buninyong highway race circuit, with a race shaping climb had turn out to be a staple however the highway race delivered a course that was not suited to pure climbers or, for that matter, pure sprinters both given its brief however oft repeated ascent. That signifies that aside from the geographic change the shift to a special location may provide a chance to open up the race to a method of rider who has lengthy been on the again foot in Buninyong. Course particulars, nevertheless, are but to be revealed.
The racing in January of this yr delivered a criterium win within the elite ladies’s and males’s race to Jayco-AlUla to Ruby Roseman-Gannon and Caleb Ewan, whereas Grace Brown (FDJ-Suez) took out the elite ladies’s time trial title and Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla) the boys’s. Roseman-Gannon and Plapp additionally swept up the highway race victories – with Plapp claiming the inexperienced and gold for his third yr in a row.
The Nationwide Championships has historically been one of many opening occasions for a packed Australian calendar in January, giving the nation’s home riders an opportunity to go toe to toe with returning professionals who then transfer onto the WorldTour occasions of the Tour Down Below and Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Highway Race.