Tour of Chongming Island 2023

The penultimate race of the Women's WorldTour season will see the sprinters duke it out in a series of short, but explosive stages

The peloton races along at the 2019 Tour of Chongming Island

Jump to:

Tour of Chongming Island

Dates 12 Oct - 14 Oct
Race Length 349 kms
Race Category Elite Women

Overview

After three years of cancellations during the pandemic, the Women’s WorldTour is set to return to China at the end of 2023, with the Tour of Chongming Island the first of two events in a week-long trip for the peloton.

Seven WorldTour teams, nine Women’s Continental teams and two national teams - one apiece from Hong Kong and China - will be on the start line at the Tour of Chongming Island. There is no doubt that FDJ-SUEZ and UAE Team ADQ, in particular, will both field strong teams, with Chiara Consonni leading the line for the latter.

The Tour of Chongming is a stage race, but really, it’s a multi-day sprint competition. All three stages are typically pan-flat, with honorary Queen of the Mountains points awarded for rises of just a few metres. The stages are also usually on the shorter side, resembling criteriums more than a long Grand Tour sprint day. In all 13 editions to date, it’s been very rare for any stage to culminate in anything other than a bunch sprint. In the growing world of all-rounders and GC riders, Chongming remains a race reserved for the purest of sprinters.

Despite being in a relatively far-flung location, the Tour of Chongming Island has been a regular feature on the women’s calendar since 2007, and has attracted an increasingly international field in each year since its inception. Its list of winners is a roll call of the best sprinters of the last 15 years, including Chloe Hosking, Kirsten Wild and most recently, Lorena Wiebes.

Race key

Dates: October 12-14, 2023

Country: China

Category: 2.UWT

Editions: 13 (as of 2022)

First winner: Li Meifang

Most recent winner: Lorena Wiebes

Contenders

For a full list of our contenders, check out our race preview.

Teams

FDJ-SUEZ (WWT)
Human Powered Health
Israel-Premier Tech Roland
Jayco AlUla
Liv Racing TeqFind
UAE Team ADQ
Uno-X Pro Cycling
ARA | Skip Capital (CTW)
Ceratizit-WNT Pro Cycling
China Liv Pro Cycling
Coop-Hitec Products
Dukla Praha
Duolar-Chevalmeire
Hebei Women
Li Ning Star Ladies
Tashkent City Women Professional Cycling Team
China (NAT)
Hong Kong (NAT)

How to watch

Live coverage and race replays of the Tour of Chongming Island 2023 will be available on GCN+ for subscribers in selected territories. Click here for more details.

Schedule:

Stage 1 live from 07:05 CEST on 12 October
Stage 2 live from 07:05 CEST on 13 October
Stage 3 live from 07:05 CEST on 14 October

Race history

First launched in 2007, the Tour of Chongming is held in the Shanghai region of China and organised by the Chinese cycling federation. Between 2007 and 2015, the race used to have an additional event attached to it: this was at first a time trial, and then between 2010 and 2015 it was a one-day race which formed part of the Women’s World Cup series. Similarly to the stage race, the one-day event was usually completely flat and culminated in a bunch sprint.

Since 2016, the race has just been the stage race, and has been part of the WorldTour calendar since its inception. The race has always attracted top teams and big-name sprinters, and features most of the best sprinters of recent times in its list of winners.

Over the years, the Tour of Chongming Island has stuck resolutely to its format as a sprinters’ race, featuring exclusively flat and fast stages. The only thing that has really developed with time is the length of the stages, which used to often fall below the 80km mark, and are now usually more than 110km. For the first three editions, the Tour was four stages, but has been three since 2010.

Taking place in China, this race suffered greatly during the Covid-19 pandemic, and was cancelled for three editions in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The race was previously held in May, but with the expansion of the Spanish block since 2019, it has found a new spot at the end of the season in October for 2023.