The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of the 2026 WorldTour calendars

The UCI published the 2026 Men’s and Women’s WorldTour calendars this week, and here I’m looking at the good, the bad, and the ugly of that announcement – tongue somewhat in cheek. 

Two years after the Giro d’Italia Women was taken over by RCS, organisers of the men’s Giro d’Italia, the two races will now be coupled together as the Giro d’Italia Women moves from July to May and June, starting on the last weekend of the men’s race. This increases the status of the women’s race (no longer will I have to answer questions of ‘but why is the women’s Giro not in May?’) and opens the door to the women visiting the most famous Italian climbs more often than they currently do – despite snow posing a bigger problem than in July, most high mountain passes should be open by June.

A very welcome side-effect is that the Giro Women no longer has to compete with the men’s Tour to which it always took a very distant second place. Ultimately, this may be the most important positive of the date change: With no other WorldTour race, men’s or women’s, scheduled against it, the Giro Women can finally receive all the attention it definitely warrants. 

On the flipside, the Tour de France Femmes has been uncoupled from the Tour de France Hommes, starting the weekend after the men’s race reaches Paris. 

Speaking of Paris: the inaugural 2022 edition began with a sprint stage on the Champs-Élysées before the men started their final stage, making for a very grand (if, for the media, logistically somewhat challenging) send-off. 2023 saw Clermont-Ferrand host the women’s start, two weeks after the men’s first rest day, and the connection between the two races was very much there. The 2024 race (with its Dutch Grand Départ) was moved to August due to the Paris Olympics, and I had hoped that this would be a one-off. But after starting in Brittany on the final weekend of the men’s Tour this year, the 2026 Swiss Grand Départ will now have next to no connection to the men’s race.

And while I understand, even welcome, foreign Grand Départs for the three-week Tour de France Hommes, should a race of 7-10 stages really have 2-4 stages held at least partly outside the country it derives its name from? This is a rhetorical question; the answer is no. But I guess money talks, and ASO is more than happy to take money from the Netherlands, Switzerland or other places even if it dilutes the French-ness of their marquee women’s race.

The Classic Brugge-De Panne has been renamed to “The Great Sprint Classic”, possibly as a reaction to the creation of the “Copenhagen Sprint” in the Danish capital. Now, having the word “Classic” in your race name is an indication that is not, in fact, a true classic – neither Paris-Roubaix nor the Ronde van Vlaanderen, Milano-Sanremo or Liège-Bastogne-Liège need that moniker. But I’m willing to let that one slide, particularly since it’s been part of the name ever since the Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde moulted from a men’s three-day, four-stage race to one-day races for men and women.

But “Great”, really? What’s wrong with “De Panne Sprint Classic? If you feel the need to add ‘great’ to the name of your thing, that’s because, well, it isn’t – otherwise you wouldn’t have to add that word, people would think of it that way already, whether it’s the British railways or a pan-flat sprinters’ race in West Flanders.