Missing road races? Don't worry, the wait is almost over. Tomorrow, January 7th, the championship that will award the national titles and the "green and gold" jerseys will begin in Australia, an ideal prologue to the Tour Down Under.

The stage for the Australian championships will be Perth, capital of Western Australia, which will host all the events, starting with the time trials and ending on Sunday 11th with the road races reserved for Elite Women and Elite Men.

The first races will feature Junior women and men (racing over a distance of 19.5 kilometers), Under 23 men (who will face 29.3 kilometers of racing) and club teams competing for the team time trial title.

On Thursday 8th, we will see Under 23 Women in action and then, at 5:49 Italian time, the Elite Women. The day will conclude with the Elite Men competing for the title over a distance of 39 kilometers.

On Friday, athletes will chase the national title in the Criterium, while on Saturday the focus will be on male and female Juniors and U23 men engaged in their reserved road race.

We will then arrive at the big day for the major categories: we will discover at dawn on Sunday who will succeed Lucinda Stewart and Luke Durbridge, winners twelve months ago.

FAVORITES AGAINST THE CLOCK. In the men's time trial, attention will certainly be focused on defending champion Luke Plapp. The 25-year-old from Jayco AlUla closed 2025 by winning a short stage race in the Australian national calendar, in which Kelland O'Brien also participated, who twelve months ago finished third in the national time trial championship. The provisional start list published by the organizers also includes Jay Vine, silver medalist in 2025, and Ben O'Connor, winner at Col de la Loze in the eighteenth stage of the last Tour de France.

The women's race will feature sixteen athletes, and among the favorites for the Australian time trial title will certainly be: Brodie Chapman, who will try to repeat last year's success, Anya Loew, who was third last season; Georgia Baker, winner in October at the Tour of Chongming Island, and the very young Felicity Wilson-Haffenden, fourth at the World Championships in Rwanda behind Federica Venturelli.

ROAD RACE FAVORITES. In the women's road race (109 kilometers / 8 laps of the Kings Park circuit), there are currently seventy-eight registered riders, and the list certainly highlights Amanda Spratt (Lidl Trek), who could aim for victory and then wear the Australian champion's jersey in her final year as a professional cyclist. Tiffany Cromwell and Neve Bradbury, who we'll see racing with the Canyon SRAM jersey, will certainly battle, not to mention the many representatives of Liv AlUla Jayco: from Amber Pate to Ruby Roseman Gannon, including the young Coupland and Appleton, who were protagonists at the Tour de l'Avenir.

Among the men, who will race over a distance of 176 kilometers, Jayco Alula will line up six athletes: Durbridge, Plapp, O'Brien, O'Connor, Porter, and the young McKenzie. Team Ccache X Bodywrap will also be able to count on a numerous squad, having registered Liam Walsh (third last year) and seven other athletes. Q36.5 Pinarello will start with Harper and Howson, while Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates), the 2025 Criterium national champion Sam Welsford (INEOS Grenadiers), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Matthew Dinham (Team Picnic PostNL), Brady Gilmore (NSN Cycling Team), winner of six races in 2025, and the twenty-year-old Oscar Chamberlain (Decathlon CMA CGM Team) will race without teammates.