#GPNews1703 - Indian cycling is making big moves
+ What's it like to race in Vietnam? Where is Hagos Welay? And much more news, stories and results from the international peloton
Hello and welcome back to Global Peloton’s free bi-weekly newsletter!
The potential of professional cycling in India is a storyline that I’m following closely at the moment, especially following the success of the Bajaj Pune Grand Tour in January, where a reported 2.5 million people spectated India’s first UCI race in more than a decade.
This is a sport-mad country, and India wants to stake its claim as a global player for sports events. Now it seems that cycling is in the sights of the powers that be, and major investment is being lined up for a brand new competition: The Indian Cycling League. Just how disruptive this new competition will be is yet to be unveiled, but with central government backing, the ICL has major potential.
Also in the newsletter this week we’ve got an interesting viewpoint from a young Australian rider, Charlotte Lovett, on what it’s like racing in Vietnam after she completed 11 straight days of racing there. Plus, a short update on Ethiopian climber Hagos Welay and some breakthrough results from some exciting talents.
A reminder too that the the best way to support my work in reporting on professional cycling beyond its traditional European base is to sign up to Escape Collective through one of my articles. When you do that, the majority of your membership money goes directly to me. It’s a great way to support the future of independent cycling journalism and to ensure that Global Peloton continues to grow.
Enjoy the newsletter,
Dan
Recent posts:
- Introducing Catalina Soto Camps: ‘I don’t want to be the only Chilean riding overseas’
- How a Malaysian detour helped Stefan de Bod bounce back to the European peloton
- Big plans afoot for cycling in India as ‘world’s first’ franchise cycling league to launch
Indian cycling making moves
Following the roaring success of the Bajaj Pune Grand Tour in January, those charged with developing cycling in India are looking to build on that success by planning to launch the “world’s first franchise-based road cycling league” at the end of 2026.
The Indian Cycling League, which is not expected to be under the UCI’s jurisdiction, is set to launch in November with eight teams representing eight different Indian states. Each team is set to comprise of 10 riders each, with two international spots available on each team and two places for junior riders; the rest will be elite Indian riders. The competition will include three phases, with teams competing over a criterium, team time trial and a standard road race in different parts of the country ahead of a grand finale, of which details have yet to be announced.
The first round will take place in the city of Ahmedabad, Gujarat, in the second week of November 2026 and financial backing for the ICL is to come from the Indian national government, so the competition can be expected to be well funded. Race locations for the other rounds of the competition have not yet been revealed.
What’s it like to race in Vietnam?
Opening Weekend has passed, we’ve had Strade Bianche and the Paris-Nice, Tirreno Adriatico double-header, with the biggest and most historic Classics still to come over the next few weeks. You’d be forgiven then, for missing a couple of stage races that took place in Vietnam last week. A blip on the UCI calendar for most, but significant nonetheless for women’s racing in Asia where opportunities to compete can be scarce.
When you think of Vietnam, you probably think of the war, or perhaps of the lush green landscape, of rice (the country is the world’s fifth-largest producer) or of bustling and vibrant cities, with food stalls and vast marketplaces. You certainly don’t think of bike racing.
However, the country that sits on the very east of the Indochinese peninsular has steadily become a player on the Asian scene over the last decade and has now launched two back-to-back UCI women’s stage races, which concluded on Sunday.
The BIWASE Tour of Vietnam and BIWASE Cup both comprise of five stages and taken in the full variety that the country has to offer, with the long climbs of the south of the country, just outside Ho Chi Minh City, characterising the Tour of Vietnam, before the BIWASE Cup takes in its flatlands. If two five-day stage races in quick succession weren’t enough for the riders, organisers also arranged a one-hour criterium on the day in between the races, meaning the peloton raced for eleven days straight.
But what’s it actually like for a rider to travel to race in Vietnam? Charlotte Lovett is an Australian racer in her first elite year. After a late opportunity popped up for the young climber to head to Vietnam, she jumped at the chance. Not only were these races Lovett’s first elite UCI competitions, it was also her first time travelling outside of Australia. Here’s how Lovett describes her Vietnamese racing experience, in her own words:
I've been loving it. It's so much fun. I actually didn't think I'd enjoy it as much as I did. But it's been really good. This is my first time racing internationally and also leaving the country full stop. I've never left Australia. So it was a bit of a shock.
The first thing you think about with Vietnam is it's a developing country. So I was thinking the roads probably won't be the best…but I was shocked to see the amount of infrastructure. It was not what I thought a developing country would look like. Then the first day, we went out on the road, and I think our first words were not very appropriate. There was quite a lot of, like, ‘oh my God, what is happening?’ People don't use turn signals. Everyone just goes wherever they want. The main form of communication out on the road is beeping. It's like saying, ‘hey, I'm here, don't pull out’.
The racing is certainly very, very different. We didn't actually look at any of the race information before, so it was quite a rude shock when three days after we said yes, my mum was actually looking at all the race profiles and she told me that I’m going to be doing 1,200km in about 10 days.
Back home, the racing – we don't have a lot of women. We get maybe pelotons of 70, sometimes scraping in 80, but that's really only at the ProVelo. So our little state events, you'll get maybe 20 women, where over here our first race was 106. So there's a lot of people on the roads already, and then you have all the cars and the convoy, and then you've got all the little motorbikes as well that are our escorts because we're racing on open roads; which I guess is another thing that's different to Australia. I'm pretty used to racing on open roads with my club, but as much as you've got to focus on the race, you've also got to focus on what's going on around you, and in Australia we don't really have that. Normally we're racing on completely closed roads or rolling closures, which is kind of what's happening in Vietnam, but the motorbikes are so far ahead of the bunch that people can easily just sneak out of their driveway and jump on with us. In the first stage, we actually had a truck come in and drive next to the peloton, and it was like if he pulls out, he's wiping out half the peloton.
I didn't know what to expect in the race itself. I actually thought I'd be blown out the back, way before it even got to the hills. I am a bit disappointed that I couldn't hold the girls up the hills. Back in Australia, I am pretty good with holding girls up the hills, but these girls over here, they're just so strong and so used to the heat that they can just power away on the hills. So I was a bit disappointed with my climbing ability. Definitely when I go home, I need to really work on being able to sustain long climbs at the 30kph pace that we were doing up the hills.
On the fourth stage, I held on a bit longer because I knew what to expect. As we were going on, it was kind of like, okay, well, I'm now a GC rider. I'm not contending for first, second or third. But I have top-10 and I need to keep top-10. On the third stage, I was actually sitting in 8th, so I was really disappointed when I lost it and went back to 10th. But then stage 4 and 5, it was just, in my head, these are the girls that cannot beat me. If this girl goes, I need to be with her. And if the leader of the young riders classification goes, I need to be with her.
I got to the line on the final stage, and my team ran over saying ‘good job, amazing. And my first thought was, well, I've lost GC, so I don't really know what you guys are celebrating. And Brett [team manager] said, Charlotte, you kept it.
Lovett finished an impressive 10th on General Classification at the BIWASE Tour of Vietnam after climbing well in the 3rd, 4th and 5th stages. She was also second in the youth classification. The BIWASE Cup didn’t suit her characteristics, but the youngster still picked up a 10th place on the 2nd stage.
Lovett was due to move to France for the rest of the season with a DN1 team, but new rules laid down by the French cycling federation have squeezed opportunities for riders from outside of France. Lovett is now looking for other opportunities to race in Europe later in the year.
The BIWASE Tour of Vietnam was won overall by Russian rider Marina Komina, racing for the Li Ning Star Ladies team ahead of Karin Söderqvist and Oda Aune Gissinger, both riding for European UCI team Hitec Products-Fluid Control. Their team-mate Alma Møller Rasmussen won the BIWASE Cup ahead of Vietnamese rider Thi Thu Mai Nguyen and Gissinger.
Where is Hagos Welay Berhe?
A couple of years ago, young Ethiopian Hagos Welay was viewed as the hottest upcoming African prospect around. He signed a three-year contract with Jayco-AlUla in 2023 after several top results the previous season. He went on to ride the Vuelta a España in his first professional year and picked up some good results.
Welay also suffered several major crashes during his time with the Australian squad, and after missing much of the 2025 season through injury, he was told that his contract wouldn’t be renewed.
Welay had shown flashes of real potential during his time in the WorldTour, but now, aged 24, he is left without a team and without much prospect for his future career. Global Peloton reached out to Welay’s agent and his former team to try to find out what was going on and whether he was planning a return to racing in 2026.
After a big crash at the end of his 2025 season, Welay had a metal plate inserted into his leg to aid recovery. He is currently in Switzerland waiting for an appointment to have that plate removed.
Global Peloton has been told that Welay “wants to return,” but needs to undergo this procedure before getting back to training.
Race Round-up
The Tour of Antalya in Türkiye last week was a real showing of future global talent. The race was won overall by Soudal Quick-Step devo team’s Brazilian ace Henrique Bravo ahead of his young Mexican team-mate Said Cisneros, with the rather more experienced Eduardo Sepulveda finishing third for his new team Li Ning Star. Alongside the Latin Americans, there were stage wins for local sprinter Ramazan Yilmaz. Yilmaz would have won the final stage too had he not celebrated too early. He was pipped by Uzbek track rider Sergey Rostovstsev. A little further down the GC, there were top rides by young African racers Awet Aman, Amaniel Desta and Samuel Niyonkuru, who all finished in the top 15 following a decisive mountaintop finish on day 3.
In Greece, there was another big performance by EF’s young Colombian climber Juan Felipe Rodriguez, who finished third overall at the Tour of Rhodes. That performance follows a solid 18th at the Volta ao Algarve last month.
The Tour de Taiwan is just over halfway through at the time of writing. There have been stage wins for Dusan Rajovic, Matthew Fox and Matys Grisel as the WorldTour and ProTeams dominate once again at this race. Several teams have sponsors from Taiwan, so it’s always a target for some of the bigger European teams.
One of Colombia’s biggest national-level stage races took place last week, the Clásica de Rionegro, which has races for both ben and women. Five-time national champion Diana Peñuela won the women’s race in a 1-2-3-4-5 for her Sistecredito team. Wilmar Paredes won the men’s race for Team Medellin-EPM - a team which has just been banned by the UCI for 30 days following multiple biological passport breaches.
Other Bits…
Kim Le Court-Pienaar was recognised on Mauritius’ 58th Independence Day with the Order of the Star and Key of the Indian Ocean, one of the country’s highest distinctions 🇲🇺
Grand Tour stage winner and Mexican cycling hero Julio Perez Cuapio has been appointed by A.R. Monex - the team that developed Isaac del Toro - to run its women’s team 🇲🇽
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