The Tour Down Under has a full starting list, with both the National Champion and the Giro d’Italia podium finisher guaranteed for 2025.

While it seems like just yesterday that the 2024 season finished, here we are already planning for the 2025 Tour Down Under. This is the first race of the Australian cycling season, and it starts in just six weeks. Many well-known riders, both men and women, have already announced that they will be racing. This includes both of the 2024 National Road Race Champions.

Sam Welsford has a lot of great memories from last year’s race, when he won all three sprints on his Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe start.

Welsford told the Tour Down Under, “I’m really looking forward to coming back to my home race to start the season.” “It’s an event with a lot of good memories for us, particularly from this year, where we took three stages, so it will be great to be back at the Santos Tour Down Under again in 2025.”

Luke Plapp, who rides for Jayco-AlUla, didn’t have a great home race last January like Welsford did. A big crash in the third stage of the race forced the 23-year-old to give up.

Plapp said in a statement from the race organizers, “I’ll be hoping to defend my national road race title in Perth the week before. That could be the perfect lead-in to the Santos Tour Down Under.” “The last Santos Tour Down Under didn’t go as planned because I had to quit because of a bad crash.” Our team is great, and I’m looking forward to a much better race this time.”

In the women’s race, the top riders from the country, including defending winner Ruby Roseman-Gannon and cycling legend Amanda Spratt, will be present at the start. Although both women have won the race before, Spratt won three times between 2017 and 2019 and Roseman-Gannon won the covid-restricted 2022 version.

Additionally, Geraint Thomas, winner of the Tour de France and a podium finisher in this year’s Giro d’Italia, wants to go to Australia for what could be his last chance to race.