Profile & Route women's Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race 2026

On the 31st of January the women's peloton will take on the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, which will start and finish at 02:40 and 06:30CET respectively. We take a look at its profile.

The Australian race revolves around the city of Geelong, with deep connections to Cadel Evans. It is a mostly flat race all throughout, before entering the final circuit where the riders will race around on four occasions, and they will have two climbs within it. The climb to Challambra Crescent is 1.3 kilometers at 7.9%. Not too hard, but enough to split the peloton, drop several riders, and on the final lap attack hard, specially as towards the summit it goes up to 15%. It's a very explosive section that ends with 9 kilometers to go where the riders will be in small groups, but have around two kilometers to reorganize.

Following that there will be a small uphill pitch where some attacks are, again, possible, of around 300 meters at 10%. However from there on the race changes quite significantly and the final 6 kilometers will be much more prone to chasing. Along big avenues, the riders will have only two corners until they reach the finishing straight. It is as simple of a finale as it could be where a solo rider stands little chances, and having a large group can be very beneficial. This is where the balance between the early attackers and the sprinters will be interesting, with a sprint or late attack both capable of leading to success.