The world’s best riders will show their skills in 33 events, starting with the UAE Tour and the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite at the end of February.
Road racing has returned, and the intensity will only pick up with the first events of the UCI WorldTour, as the series progresses through the 2022 calendar. The international elite of cyclists is set to battle across three continents (Asia, Europe and America), with races in 11 different countries. Australia would have brought even more diversity to the calendar, with the traditional opening of the season Down Under, but the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race and the Santos Tour Down Under had to be canceled due to the restrictions imposed to fight the Covid-19 pandemics.
Sprinters, climbers, puncheurs, rouleurs… every type of established champions and rising stars will find opportunities to shine as they try to succeed the winners of the 2021 UCI World Ranking: Tadej Pogačar (winner of the UCI World Ranking as well as the Stage Race UCI World Ranking), Wout van Aert (One Day Race UCI World Ranking) and Deceuninck-Quick Step (UCI Team Ranking), who still aim to dominate collectively under the Wolfpack’s new name, Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl Team.
Spring battles
The UAE Tour (February 20th-26th) will bring the first battles: tricky stages in the desert, an individual time trial and two mountainous days with summit finishes. Pogačar and the other best stage racers can already jostle in this early season rendez-vous the Slovenian prodigy dominated last year for his UAE Team Emirates. The Slovenian and a cohort of stars will then head to Tirreno-Adriatico (ITA - March 7th-13th), while his countryman Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Visma) and others are expected to race Paris-Nice (FRA - March 6th-13th).
At the same time, Classics specialists will have already started their spring with the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite (February 26th), the traditional Belgian opener, leading to a campaign featuring all the ingredients for many thrillers: Italy’s white roads (Strade Bianche, March 5th) and Classicissima (Milano-Sanremo, March 19th); Belgian cobbles (Oxyclean Classic Brugge-De Panne, March 23rd, E3 Saxo Bank Classic, March 25th, Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields, March 27th, Dwaars door Vlaanderen - A travers la Flandre, March 30th, Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres, April 3rd) and hills (La Flèche Wallonne, April 20th, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, April 24th)…
When you hear that the Omloop is being held this month 😍 #OHN22 pic.twitter.com/x9mq8bsIPL
— OmloopHetNieuwsblad (@OmloopHNB) February 1, 2022
The calendar for the final stretch of the spring Classics is slightly adjusted this season to accommodate the French presidential elections. A week after the Ronde van Vlaanderen, riders will face the Dutch traps of the Amstel Gold Race (April 10th), while the iconic Paris-Roubaix is set for April 17th, as the event returns to a spring date after a historic autumnal weekend in 2021. Eschborn-Frankfurt (May 1st) will cap off this intense stretch for the one-day race fans.
Grand Tour assaults Stage racers will keep the intensity rising in Spain with the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (March 21st-27th), quickly followed by the Itzulia Basque Country (April 4th-9th), and in Switzerland (Tour de Romandie, April 26th-May 1st), ahead of the first Grand Tour of the year: the Giro d’Italia, with a first ever start in Hungary (May 6th) and a spectacular finish in Verona (May 29th), where Richard Carapaz (Ineos Grenadiers) sealed his victory in 2019. The Ecuadorian climber is expected at the start again. He’ll face grueling battles in his effort to succeed his teammate Egan Bernal, the winner in 2021.
There will be little time to gaze in awe at the views of the Verona Arena, as the Critérium du Dauphiné (FRA - June 5th-12th) and the Tour de Suisse (June 12th-19th) will bring more battles ahead of the Tour de France (July 1st-24th). The three-week event will celebrate Danish cycling culture, with a Grand Départ in Copenhagen, and lead the riders over cobbles and summits as iconic as L’Alpe d’Huez, to challenge the two-time reigning champion Pogačar.
Don’t expect the Slovenian wonderkid to take a break after reaching the Champs-Elysées - he’s already announced his intention to return to the final Grand Tour of the season, La Vuelta Ciclista a España (August 19th-September 11th), where he had a breakthrough performance in 2019.
Final pushes for glory
Ahead of the three-week race from Utrecht (the Netherlands) to Madrid, puncheurs and climbers will have another challenge at the Donostia San Sebastian Klasikoa (ESP - July 30th), and the Tour de Pologne (July 30th-August 5th) will offer more thrills on its varied routes.
Action will keep going all around the world during La Vuelta Ciclista a España with one-day races such as as the Bemer Cyclassics (GER - August 21st), the Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France (August 28th) and the Canadian Grand Prix in Québec (September 9th) and Montréal (September 11th).
Classic experts should also thrive in the seven stages of the Benelux Tour. The world’s best cyclists are then expected in Wollongong (Australia), for the 2022 UCI Road World Championships (September 18th-25th), before they take on the final UCI WorldTour challenges of the season: the Monument, Il Lombardia (ITA - October 8th) ahead of the fireworks of the Gree-Tour of Guangxi (CHN - October 13th-18th).