The Santos Tour Down Under this week (21-26 January) kicks off the 2025 UCI WorldTour, with teams represented by some of their strongest riders in Australia.
Winners of the UCI WorldTeam Ranking in 2023 and 2024, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, are gearing up for a flying start in Australia, where they line up four of their five newcomers to accompany Tadej Pogačar et al in 2025: a super explosive puncheur in Jhonatan Narvaez, two mighty powerhouses Rune Herregodts and Julius Johansen, and a supremely exciting climbing talent, Pablo Torres. As for Florian Vermeersch, he will further improve the team’s abilities in the Classics.
The Emirati outfit will notably battle with Team Visma | Lease a Bike, their main rivals in recent seasons, who vowed to do everything to bring back Jonas Vingegaard to the top of the Tour de France podium and lead Wout van Aert to victory in a cobbled Monument. Notable domestiques such as Robert Gesink (retired) and Jan Tratnik (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) exit but plenty of proven talent is arriving in the shape of Simon Yates, Victor Campenaerts, and Axel Zingle… And let’s see how quickly the UCI Men Under 23 Road World Champion Niklas Behrens steps up!
Slight adjustments and massive overhauls
Behrens’ predecessor, Axel Laurance (crowned in 2023), also changes teams for the new season, from Alpecin-Deceuninck to Ineos Grenadiers. Young explosive talents will still be in numbers to accompany Mathieu Van der Poel, especially with cyclo-cross experts Tibor del Grosso and Emiel Verstrynge joining the UCI WorldTour.
As for the British outfit, they reshuffle both their management and their squad as they aim to return to the very summit of road cycling. Tom Pidcock made his way out to Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, among the most ambitious UCI ProTeams alongside Tudor Pro Cycling Team, who have most notably attracted Marc Hirschi and Julian Alaphilippe, as Soudal Quick-Step turn to a young French climber, Valentin Paret-Peintre. More climbing talent is to be seen with Movistar Team, whose main coup was to sign Pablo Castrillo from Equipo Kern Pharma.
Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe had a much busier offseason as the German team pursue their change of guard a year after signing Primož Roglič. Such emblematic figures as Max Schachmann, Emanuel Buchmann, Lennard Kämna and Sergio Higuita have left… and an impressive cohort of fresh talents come in: Maxim Van Gils, Oier Lazkano Lopez, Laurence Pithie, Finn Fisher-Black, Giulio Pellizzari…
XDS-Astana Team were even busier, welcoming a new title sponsor and signing no fewer than 14 riders while icons Mark Cavendish and Alexey Lutsenko have departed. Diego Ulissi, Sergio Andres Higuita Garcia, Fausto Masnada, Clément Champoussin, Wout Poels, Aaron Murray Gate… the list goes on, including Haoyu Su, marking the return of a Chinese rider in the UCI WorldTour five seasons after Wang Meiyin left Bahrain-Merida.
Many different backgrounds
The Bahraini outfit - now Bahrain Victorious - also brings new faces to the UCI WorldTour with five riders stepping up from their development team CTF Victorious, including UCI Junior Track World Champion Žak Eržen. But the main focus among their offseason moves is on Lenny Martinez, only 21 years old, but who has already impressed with Groupama-FDJ and aims for a Grand Tour podium sooner rather than later.
Meanwhile, new talents rise in the French team, with Brieuc Rolland, and references such as Guillaume Martin and Rémi Cavagna also ready to begin a new chapter. Cofidis may have lost Martin, as well as Simon Geschke, but they bring in plenty of punch with Alex Aranburu, Dylan Teuns, Sylvain Moniquet, Simon Carr…
Ben O’Connor eventually claimed his first Grand Tour top-3 last year in La Vuelta Ciclista a España, as part of a stellar season, and the Australian climber heads for new summits with Jayco-AlUla. Another attraction in the Australian team will be South Africa’s Alan Hatherly, the reigning UCI Mountain Bike World Champion (cross-country Olympic): “Combining road and mountain bike is new and refreshing and I’m really looking forward to where this journey can go!”
Talent comes from many horizons, as traditionally illustrated by EF Education-EasyPost, whose global squad welcomes new riders such as France’s Alex Baudin, Denmark’s Kasper Asgreen, Estonia’s Madis Mikhels, Italy’s Vincenzo Albanese and Samuele Battistella…
Rising stars across the board
Also famed for the variety of backgrounds found in their team, Lidl-Trek reinforce their Danish block as Søren Kragh Andersen reunites with Mads Pedersen more than a decade after their Junior years together. What’s more, their much younger compatriot Albert Philipsen jumps from the Junior ranks to the UCI WorldTeam with the American squad.
Philipsen’s main rival in the youth classes, France’s Paul Seixas, will also race at UCI WorldTour level in 2025, as part of an impressive list of youngsters joining Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale: Léo Bisiaux, Noa Isidore and Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen. At 26 years old, Stefan Bissegger brings his raw power to the team as well.
Team Picnic PostNL (with three 20-year-olds rising from their development team), Arkéa-B&B Hotels (most notably signing France’s Léandre Lozouet and Norway’s Embret Svestad-Bårdseng) and Intermarché-Wanty (bringing Under 23 European Champion Hub Artz from the development team to the UCI WorldTeam) also count on youngsters to elevate them to the greatest successes. Bring it on!