World Champion and Tour de France winner, Cadel Evans joined Victorian Premier Dr Denis Napthine today to unveil plans for a new cycling event on the world calendar in 2015, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

Some of the world’s best cycling teams including Orica GreenEDGE and BMC will converge on Victoria on 31 January and 1 February 2015 for one of the greatest weekends of cycling Australia has ever seen – the first ever Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race. The first event of its kind in Australia, and inspired by the prestigious Spring Classics of Europe, the elite one day race format delivers high excitement and intense competition. As well as the Elite Men’s Road Race on Sunday 1 February, this new major event will be preceded by an Elite Women’s Road Race and People’s Ride on Saturday 31 January.

Noting that the Race will start in Geelong, travel through his home town of Barwon Heads, Thirteenth Beach, Torquay, Bells Beach, the rolling hills around Moriac with a dramatic finish on Geelong’s Waterfront, Cadel Evans observed: “I love this part of the world, it’s beautiful country that’s ideal for a one day cycling race, and it also just happens to be my home. The 2010 UCI Road World Championships in Geelong highlighted just how thrilling the one day road race format can be, and I am tremendously excited to see the Race come to life and to be bringing top international cycling to Barwon Heads, Geelong and Torquay. “I hope this Race introduces more people to the sport of cycling, a sport which has given me so much joy over my life,” Mr Evans added.

The voice of world cycling, commentator Phil Liggett, said he was delighted upon hearing news of the event and looks forward to covering the race. “The event will also for me recall the legacy of the 2010 World Championships in Geelong because that’s where the race will finish and they were, for me, the best World Championships ever organised. So well done to Geelong and to the State of Victoria…because now you are putting yourself on the international map for the men’s and women’s cycling,” Mr. Liggett said.

The event will help honour the incredible legacy that Cadel Evans has made to cycling and more broadly Australian sport.