The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Races didn’t disappoint over the weekend. The modern one-day classic races featured fast and tactical racing on scenic roads, rolling hills, technical corners and pinchy climbs.
Both fields were packed with top contenders, many of whom raced the Tour Down Under the week before. With 300 UCI points for the winners, the race was hotly contested.
On Saturday, the same 10 Women’s WorldTour squads lined up to tackle the 141.8km course, while the men completed a similar route on Sunday over 183.8km. The key to both was the finish circuits featuring the short and punchy climbs over Challambra Crescent ascent. The women made two passes of the climb while the men tackled it four times.

Kiwi Ally Wollaston of the FDJ-Suez team won the women’s race. She capped off an incredible week, becoming the first cyclist to win both the Surf Coast Classic – Women and Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race – Women in the same week.
Wollaston claimed victory in a bunch sprint similar to her win in the Surf Coast Classic on Wednesday, once again showing off her sprinting prowess and narrowly edging out Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ) and Noemi Ruegg (EF Education – Oatly).

The damage done by wind, echelon, climbing, and hills was not enough to keep Wollaston out of contention, and the other teams did not do enough to dislodge her. This ultimately paved the way for her to win in a classic sprint finish, and she was always going to be the one to beat.
Wollaston said on the finish line of the final lap that, “I actually felt super comfortable – it’s just me trying to find my own space, trying to mentally switch on before the last climb. I knew it would be an all out effort to get over the second time so I wanted to get into my own space and the right mental space before heading up the second time. I knew I had to move up right in the last run up to the climb and I did that, and I actually felt super strong today so to make it over a second time was a really happy surprise today.”
Wollaston who has joined the French team this year commented, “I feel really comfortable in this team and we’ve grown so much in the space of two weeks – we made a few mistakes in South Australia. We didn’t get bad results but we didn’t quite get the results that we wanted. We took some really key learnings from there and it made us hungrier this week. I really felt that the team had a real collective buy-in today. The same as the Surf Coast Classic, we were all really motivated today, and today suited us really well as a team.”

In the men’s race, Swiss champion Mauro Schmid delivered Team Jayco AlUla their first men’s team victory at the one-day WorldTour classic, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, in an emphatic style.
Schmid, known for his relentless attacking style, launched away solo on the final lap, hanging a mere eight seconds ahead of a chasing reduced peloton. The 25-year-old managed to hold off the chase to take the victory in Geelong, his first one-day UCI WorldTour win.
Team Jayco-AlUla dominated the final of the race, with temperatures over 37 degrees. Chris Harper led the race solo in the final 30km. Harper opened a gap of over 40 seconds, but as the final ascent of the steep Challambra climb approached, the chasers closed behind. He was eventually caught on the steepest part of the climb, but the squad remained calm, with teammate Schmid positioned near the front of the reduced group and ready to pounce.

On the descent, with just seven kilometres remaining, Schmid made his attack and continued to dangle ahead as the kilometres ticked down.
With the finish line in sight, the Swiss champion continued to maintain a slight lead and pushed on with his head down to claim a solo victory in front of Team Owner Gerry Ryan.
Mauro Schmid said, “This is my first one-day WorldTour race victory, so it is very special for me, and it is an important race for the team, so I am super happy.
“Chris Harper did an amazing ride, and he was a big part of this win because I could just sit back and then when we caught him on the climb, I knew that now was the moment to go. I saw everybody was on the limit and I still had quite good legs on that final climb.
“I did a similar attack in this race before and got caught with 300 metres to go, so I knew that I had to just go super deep and that helped me today.
“The whole team was super motivated for this one, already in the Surf Coast Classic we were riding really well but didn’t get the result, so to win today is very special for us.”
Women’s Race Results
- Ally Wollaston (FDJ – Suez)
- Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ)
- Noemi Ruegg (EF Education – Oatly)
- Chloé Dygert (CANYON//SRAM zondacrypto)
- Silke Smulders (Liv AlUla Jayco)
Queen of the Mountain
Niamh Fisher – Black (Lidl – Trek)
Mapei most combative rider
Stine Dale (Team COOP – REPSOL)
Men’s Race Results
- Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco AlUla)
- Aaron Gate (XDS Astana Team)
- Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)
- Javier Romo (Movistar Team)
- Andrea Bagioli (Lidl – Trek)
King of the Mountain
Rudy Porter (Australian Cycling Team)
Mapei most combative rider
Chris Harper (Team Jayco AlUla)

