The UCI Gravel World Championships has had no shortage of late changes and teething problems in its four years of competition, yet through the turmoil the 2026 rainbow race organisers in Australia have quietly continued to build on the solid foundation already poured when the Nannup event became one of the original participants in the UCI Gravel World Series.
The SEVEN gravel race in Nannup in Western Australia will be held on Saturday for an eighth time and a fourth time in the World Series. Each year since it was announced as the host of the 2026 Gravel World Championships, more steps have been taken in preparation for the big event but 2025 will see an upping of the ante.
“A lot of our day to day focus, and what we see as SEVEN is all in the build towards the World Championships. They are in alignment, so our day to day focus is really the World Championships, which is carrying SEVEN along with it,” race director Stephen Gallagher told Cyclingnews.
“Even training for our staff, the social media side of it, all of that has been done at SEVEN, which is part of the prep for the World Championships. But obviously we’re very well down the line in our project planning and we also take a lot of benefit from the regional government support, because they have so bought into it – it’s just brilliant.”
That support has meant, that even while the fourth edition of the Gravel World Championships had to find an emergency new home in the Netherlands at the start of this year, the organisation and community surrounding the fifth edition in Australia had already long been working hand in hand to iron out the details of the 2026 event.
The start of the 2024 SEVEN UCI Gravel World Series race in 2024 (Image credit: Daniela Tommasi / SEVEN Gravel Race)
Far from running away from the rapidly expanding scale of the World Championships that they won the rights to host back in 2022, when the UCI was just starting to dip its toe into the discipline, the opportunity is being so fully embraced by the remote location and government that they are even putting in place plans to extend the gravel experience through the week leading up to the event.
“The reason why we feel that we can host and run this whole festival events in the community is because of that support,” said Gallagher.
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Full details are yet to be announced but while the racing in the World Championships is generally over in one weekend, SEVEN is also planning for a festival of gravel leading into the event.
First, however, there are two more World Series races to unfold, Saturday’s 2025 edition and then the 2026 event, which is expected to run on a spectator-friendly course aligned to the route where the rainbow jerseys will be up for grabs.
This year’s SEVEN course, however, will be little changed from previous editions. Still there are some shifts that may alter the dynamics a little.
The 125km event with 3,200km of elevation gain will be pretty much completely on gravel roads, as always, but the run in to the finish is a little different this year. The line in Nannup is closer to the race’s exit from the forested area and therefore a little closer to the final climb, Killarney, which tops out at just 5km from where the chequered flag will be waved.
The field, which is expected to grow to more than 1,600 across the range of distances this year, that is racing to that line in 2025 will include Australian gravel champions Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon-SRAMzondacrypto) and Mark O’Brien.
Home state challengers Cassia Boglio (PAS Racing) and Mark Chong plus 2023 winner Tasman Nankervis will also be at the start along with Talia Appleton, who has already swept up the wins at the two other Australian UCI Gravel World Series qualifying rounds, Gravelista and last weekend’s Devils Cardigan. Saturday will reveal whether or not Appleton, who came second in the ProVelo Super League, can make it a clean sweep.
