New races expand the global cycling calendar in 2025
Races launching in South Korea, Chile and Algeria will provide vital racing opportunities in emerging cycling nations
What is the most important thing needed to help grow the sport of professional cycling in places where it is less developed? It’s a question I often ask interviewees.
Usually, the response I get back is that riders from emerging cycling nations need better access to racing - in Europe, but more importantly high level racing that is geographically close to them.
Elite, UCI-level competition in emerging nations is the best way to supercharge cycling development in those nations. If the sport of cycling is to become more global, more diverse, it needs a more global elite racing schedule. It means that riders get the chance to race against competitors who are better than them, thereby pushing up their own level.
The COVID pandemic shot an arrow through the global racing scene. While the European calendar mostly recovered within a year or two, the Asia, America and Africa Tours are just now showing signs of getting back to something near where they were. However, in some places, the racing has not come back, and may never do.
Read more: 2025 Global Riders to Watch
2024 saw the emergence of a wave of new UCI races on the global calendar. New events appeared in Brazil, Uzbekistan, Jamaica and elsewhere. Meanwhile, Türkiye continued to expand their ever-growing race programme and new races appeared in South East Asia. Each new addition is a boost to the local race scenes in those countries and others close by.
Although it’s positive to see new events on the calendar, several new races from last year have not yet reappeared on the schedule for 2025; including the Tour do Rio in Brazil, a series of women’s races in El Salvador and the women’s Tour of Wenzhou. It’s important that any new race created establishes a sustainable foundation for the future development of the sport.
New men’s races in 2025
2025 is no different. There will be several new and returning UCI-level men’s races appearing on the programme across the season in Africa, Asia and South America.
First off, in just a couple of weeks, the 2.2 Tour of Sahel in Mauritania returns to the UCI calendar to further bolster a developing North African race schedule. The event took place as a UCI event in 2023 but fell off the 2024 calendar. The 2023 edition was won by Adil El Arbaoui as Morocco dominated the race, sweeping the podium.
Sahel will be followed in fairly short order by more new North African races, as Algeria adds two more one-day races to compliment its flagship race, the Tour d’Algerie. The day before the national tour begins on the 9th of February, the 1.2 Grand Prix Sakiat Sidi Youcef will give teams more race days and more UCI points to chase. Two days after the ten-day stage race is complete, the Grand Prix Sonatrache provides extra competition, with the longer-standing GP de la Ville d'Alger after that. All-in-all, that’s 13 possible race days in 15 in Algeria at .2 level in the middle of February.
Running concurrently to the Algerian races, a few thousand miles south west, will be Chile’s only UCI race, the first since the Vuelta a Chiloé stopped in 2019. The sport is developing in the South American nation quite quickly, and they will have two pro riders in 2025, Vicente Rojas and Catalina Soto Campos. The five stage Vuelta Ciclista Internacional Bio Bio starts on the 12th of February.
In early June, there will be a UCI stage race in South Korea called the Tour de Gyeongnam. The five-day race appeared on the calendar in 2024 as a national level race, won by 20-year-old Seojun Lee. In 2025 the race steps up to 2.2 level.
Staying in East Asia, two more Chinese stage races have appeared on the calendar. They are the Tour of Yellow River (Dongying), a two-day race in June stepping up from national level, and the Tour of Shanghai, a new 2.2 event in September. Japan also adds a one day race. The Road Race Tokyo Tama, will take place in July having run at national level in 2023.
Read more: Spotlight on Japan - Is this cycling's sleeping giant?
Türkiye continues to grow its quite astonishing programme of racing in 2025. They have added the Grand Prix Edebiyat Yolu in July and the Grand Prix Çankiri in August. This comes after launching three new events in 2024 and promoting the Tour of Istanbul to .1 level. In total, there will be 13 men’s UCI races in Türkiye in 2025, but no women’s races. It continues to be a scene dominated by non-Turkish riders, but the development of their race schedule is admirable.
Mauritius has to be one of the fastest-developing emerging cycling nations anywhere on the planet. In 2024, they celebrated their first Grand Tour stage winner after Kim le Court’s stage 8 win at the Giro d’Italia Women and ran the second UCI-level edition of their national stage race, the Tour de Maurice. In 2025, they will add two more one day events to compliment the Tour de Maurice, in similar style to the Algerians. The Classique des Cannes will run a couple of weeks before the Tour de Maurice on the 23rd of July, while the Classique of Mauritius is planned in for the 17th of August, two days after the showpiece event finishes.
Fewer opportunities for women
The reality of lesser investment in women’s cycling continues in these emerging nations. Racing opportunities are few and far between in Africa, the Americas and Asia.
It’s not yet been formally announced, but Global Peloton understands that a women’s UCI stage race will launch in Namibia, the only women’s UCI event on the continent. The four-stage Tour of Windhoek will take place on the 20th-23rd of February after running at national level in 2023, won by Melissa Hinz. This will mean that there will be three women’s stage races across Africa in 2025; the Tour of Burundi, the Tour de Lunsar and the Tour of Windhoek
There is good news in Asia. The BIWASE Tour of Vietnam will launch in March as a five-day stage race, offering a valuable racing opportunity for South East Asia’s racers. The UCI stage race seems to have developed out of the longer-standing BIWASE Cup; a series of one day races sponsored by a large Vietnamese water company, BIWASE.
It can be expected that more events may be announced and added to the UCI schedule later in the season.
Paid subscriptions to Global Peloton enable me to share the stories of global professional cycling. Please consider adding a paid subscription and you will receive extra posts.
Latest paid post:
Other news and stories
Young Eritrean talent Aklilu Arefayne has signed for Italian Continental team General Store - Essegibi - F.Lli Curia after being let go by Intermarché-Wanty’s development squad. Mewael Girmay, Biniam’s younger brother, will stay with the Belgian team in 2025, according to Team Africa Rising
Nafosat Kozieva, one of Yanina Kuskova’s Tashkent team-mates, has signed for Iranian UCI team S.P.T. Crown Continental Team
Some riders of note still looking for a team for 2025: Stefan de Bod, Negasi Abreha, Mulu Hailemichael
Thanks for reading Global Peloton!
The best way to support Global Peloton is to add a paid subscription. Your subscription enables me to bring you more international cycling news and stories.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing and sharing.
Or, you can Buy Me a Coffee