{"id":244606,"date":"2026-05-22T00:40:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/same-course-same-day-same-distance-womens-tour-down-under-to-run-alongside-final-three-days-of-mens-race-in-2027\/"},"modified":"2026-05-22T00:40:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T00:40:08","slug":"same-course-same-day-same-distance-womens-tour-down-under-to-run-alongside-final-three-days-of-mens-race-in-2027","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/22\/same-course-same-day-same-distance-womens-tour-down-under-to-run-alongside-final-three-days-of-mens-race-in-2027\/","title":{"rendered":"Same course, same day, same distance \u2013 Women&#8217;s Tour Down Under to run alongside final three days of men&#8217;s race in 2027"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"article-body\">\n<p id=\"elk-08e7f4cf-4cb7-48d2-9303-255e5e6fb18c\">The 2027 Santos <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/womens-cycling\/womens-tour-down-under-2026\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/womens-cycling\/womens-tour-down-under-2026\/\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/womens-cycling\/womens-tour-down-under-2026\/\" rel=\"noopener\">Women&#8217;s Tour Down Under<\/a> will run on the same day and across the same stages as the final three days of racing in the men&#8217;s event, with the decision to double up prompted by a request to shorten the length of time that the women&#8217;s World Teams are required to spend in Australia at the start of each season.<\/p>\n<p>The <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-down-under\/\" target=\"_blank\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-down-under\/\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/tour-down-under\/\" rel=\"noopener\">men&#8217;s WorldTour opener<\/a> is expected to run from January 19-24 with the three-stage Women&#8217;s WorldTour race then set to take place on January 22-24. The stages will start out around 90 minutes after the men roll out and cover the same distance and have the same start and finish lines.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\"\/><\/p>\n<aside data-block-type=\"embed\" data-render-type=\"fte\" data-skip=\"dealsy\" data-widget-type=\"seasonal\" class=\"hawk-root\"\/>\n<div aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"kiosq-b\">\n<p id=\"elk-08e7f4cf-4cb7-48d2-9303-255e5e6fb18c-2\">\u201cThe challenge we were given by the UCI was to deliver a more condensed program of racing and optimise the time the women\u2019s teams spent in Australia,&#8221; said race director Stuart O&#8217;Grady in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe saw it as an opportunity to do something different and bring both men\u2019s and women\u2019s racing together and finish off with a bumper final weekend of racing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The women&#8217;s race has run before the men&#8217;s event in previous years, meaning the teams had to be away longer for fewer days of racing as they waited through the gap to the Women&#8217;s WorldTour ranked Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, which this year was held on January 31, while the Women&#8217;s Tour Down Under finished on January 19, although there were two lower-ranked one-day UCI races between.<\/p>\n<p>This extended stay, in particular, became an issue in 2026 as attendance at all but one Women&#8217;s WorldTour event each season became mandatory, meaning teams that may have chosen to miss out before were given little option but to turn up for the opening block of racing.<\/p>\n<p>While running men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s events on the same day isn&#8217;t new, the Tour Down Under \u2013 which was a forerunner in offering equal prize money \u2013 said it will be the first major event to mirror the stages.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEvery year we\u2019ve seen the level of women\u2019s racing at the TDU progress and that will now extend to having the peloton riding longer stages, so I\u2019m looking forward to seeing the atmosphere out on the roads for a huge final weekend of the Tour,&#8221; said assistant race director Carlee Taylor.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s also a great platform to highlight the strength of our women\u2019s peloton on a level we haven\u2019t seen before, and the fact that we\u2019re even able to do this reflects the growth and progression of women\u2019s cycling.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The early position in the season of the race and potential for high temperatures has been a consideration around course length through the history of the race but the rising level of the field, with all the Women&#8217;s WorldTour teams present for the first time in 2026, has already led to changes with the 394.6km event this year the longest yet.<\/p>\n<p>Even then the men&#8217;s stages, excluding the prologue, were on average 11km longer, at 142km, than the women&#8217;s stages last year.<\/p>\n<p>That is just over the average daily distance of 140km outlined as the maximum by the UCI for Women&#8217;s WorldTour stage races, with 160km being the maximum distance per stage for the women. There was just one stage in the men&#8217;s race in 2026 which exceeded this, the 169.8km finale.<\/p>\n<p>The Tour Down Under said that details of the stages will be released in coming weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"slice-container-newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-HPsZMMVEoeR9ZvVQb9Gk9C\" class=\"slice-container newsletter-inbodyContent-slice newsletterForm-articleInbodyContent-HPsZMMVEoeR9ZvVQb9Gk9C slice-container-newsletterForm\">\n<div data-hydrate=\"true\" class=\"newsletter-form__wrapper newsletter-form__wrapper--inbodyContent\">\n<div class=\"newsletter-form__container\">\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__top-bar\"\/>\n<section class=\"newsletter-form__main-section\">\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/womens-cycling\/womens-tour-down-under-to-run-alongside-final-three-days-of-mens-race-in-2027\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 2027 Santos Women&#8217;s Tour Down Under will run on the same day and across the same stages as the final three days of racing in the men&#8217;s event, with the decision to double up prompted by a request to shorten the length of time that the women&#8217;s World Teams are required to spend in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":244607,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6804],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-244606","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}