Giro d’Italia moves forward a week, UAE Tour confirmed for late February
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The final podium of the 2018 Giro d'Italia: winner Chris Froome (Team Sky) is flanked by Sunweb's Tom Dumoulin and Miguel Angel Lopez (Astana)(Image credit: Getty Images)
Silvan Dillier (AG2R La Mondiale) with Peter Sagan in the breakaway at 2018 Paris-Roubaix(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Caleb Ewan, Vincenzo Nibali and Arnaud Demare on the Milan-San Remo podium(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Mads Pedersen, Niki Terpstra and Philippe Gilbert on the 2018 Tour of Flanders podium(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Sky's Chris Froome on the final stage of the 2017 Vuelta a Espana(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
The UCI has revealed the dates of the 2019 WorldTour races, with 37 races in 18 countries spread between the Tour Down Under in January and the Tour of Turkey in late October. The full race calendar for 2019 that includes the different continental calendars will be released in September.
The biggest change to the calendar for next season is the merger of the Dubai Tour and the Abu Dhabi Tour in February to create the six-day UAE Tour (February 25-March 2).
The Giro d’Italia has moved back a week and will be held between May 11 and June 2, with the Tour de France staying in the same slot as 2018 and held between July 6-28. These dates give riders targeting the Giro-Tour double five weeks of recovery.
New races were added to the UCI WorldTour calendar under the presidency of Brian Cookson. However, the development compounded an already crowded calendar, with WorldTour races often held at the same time and so forced to compete for the best riders and visibility.
In 2019, Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico will again overlap in March, while the Tour of California (May 12-18) takes place during the Giro d’Italia.
The Gree-Tour of Guangxi in China is again set to be the final race of the 2018 WorldTour but that honour will fall to the Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey (October 22-27) in 2019, pushing the WorldTour calendar out to eight and a half months of racing.
The 2019 UCI WorldTour calendar:
15-20 January: Santos Tour Down Under (Australia) 27 January: Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race (Australia) 25 February-2 March: UAE Tour (United Arab Emirates) 2 March: Omloop Het Nieuwsblad Elite (Belgium) 9 March: Strade Bianche (Italy) 10-17 March: Paris-Nice (France) 13-19 March: Tirreno-Adriatico (Italy) 23 March: Milano-Sanremo (Italy) 25-31 March: Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (Spain) 29 March: E3 Harelbeke (Belgium) 31 March: Gent-Wevelgem in Flanders Fields (Belgium) 3 April: Dwars door Vlaanderen - A travers la Flandre (Belgium) 7 April: Ronde van Vlaanderen - Tour des Flandres (Belgium) 8-13 April: Itzulia Basque Country (Spain) 14 April: Paris-Roubaix (France) 21 April: Amstel Gold Race (the Netherlands) 24 April: La Flèche Wallonne (Belgium) 28 April: Liège-Bastogne-Liège (Belgium) 30 April-5 May: Tour de Romandie (Switzerland) 1 May: Eschborn-Frankfurt (Germany) 11 May-2 June: Giro d'Italia (Italy) 12-18 May: Amgen Tour of California (United States) 9-16 June: Critérium du Dauphiné (France) 15-23 June: Tour de Suisse (Switzerland) 6-28 July: Tour de France (France) 3 August: Clasica Ciclista San Sebastian (Spain) 3-9 August: Tour de Pologne (Poland) 4 August: Prudential RideLondon-Surrey Classic (Great Britain) 12-18 August: BinckBank Tour 24 August-15 September: La Vuelta Ciclista a España (Spain) 25 August: EuroEyes Cyclassics Hamburg (Germany) 1 September: Bretagne Classic - Ouest-France (France) 13 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec (Canada) 15 September: Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal (Canada) 12 October: Il Lombardia (Italy) 15-20 October: Gree - Tour of Guangxi (China) 22-27 October: Presidential Cycling Tour of Turkey (Turkey)
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