The Tour Down Under, usually held in January in Australia, was canceled on Thursday for the second consecutive year due to uncertainty surrounding border closures and quarantine requirements linked to the Covid pandemic.
The WorldTour’s Cadel Evans Great Ocean race, scheduled to follow in the state of Victoria, has also been canceled, as international teams from the Tour Down Under have traditionally used to chain the two events.
Generally the Down Under is the opening race of the season on the UCI WorldTour men’s calendar and the UCI ProTour women’s calendar.
But already last year, it had to be canceled due to the pandemic.
For 2022, “we have fully explored all possibilities,” Hitaf Rasheed, executive director of Events South Australia, told the event website. “But unfortunately it was ultimately the border closures and quarantine requirements for over 400 people who make up the international teams that still proved too difficult to overcome. »
