Exciting racing in Geelong with the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Races

Denmark’s Tobias Andresen won the men’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race on Sunday, while Kiwi Ally Wollaston took the victory in the women’s race on Saturday. Both races ended in a reduced bunch sprint on the Geelong waterfront.

Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) beat Great Britain’s Matthew Brennan (Visma – Lease a Bike) and Australian Brady Gilmore (NSN Cycling Team) and 16 other riders in the final lead group of 17 to claim his second win of the 2026 season.

Andresen, winner of last year’s Surf Coast Classic from Lorne to Torquay, came into the race in strong form after the Tour Down Under, in which he won stage one and podiumed in three other stages.

At the start of the race, Australian rider Simon Clarke (NSN Cycling Team), for whom the race was the last of his career, was invited by the peloton to lead in recognition of his 20 years in elite/professional cycling.

In the women’s race, New Zealand’s Ally Wollaston became the first back-to-back winner of the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

Wollaston won the 142.4km WorldTour race from second-placed Great Britain’s Josie Nelson (Team Picnic PostNL) and Spaniard Mireia Benito (AG Insurance – Soudal Team) in third.

Wollaston came into this race on great form after winning the first two stages of the Tour Down Under in Adelaide recently.

Earlier in the week, Aussie Sam Welsford and Italian Martina Fidanza sprinted to victories in the new ‘Cadel’s Criteriums’ at Eastern Gardens in Geelong on Thursday.

The Cadel’s Criterium races for men and women were a new racing opportunity for teams in this weekend’s Mapei Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race events, following the cancellation of the Surf Coast Classics.

Cadel’s Criterium, held on a compact two-kilometre circuit that included a testing hill to about 500m to go, lived up to expectations of high-speed and technical racing.