UCI WorldTour calendar 2017

There are some significant changes to the top-level men's road racing calendar for 2017, with the UCI WorldTour gaining 10 new events. The additions mean that the number of WorldTour events now numbers 37, with 15 countries visited from January to September.

There's no change to the race that kicks off the WorldTour: the Tour Down Under in Australia (January 17-22) retains its position as the traditional season opener. However, rather than being followed by an elongated break there are now a series of events in January and February between the Tour Down Under and Paris-Nice in March.

The Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Australia takes place on January 29, followed by the Tour of Qatar (February 6-10), Abu Dhabi Tour (February 23-26), Omloop Het Niewusblad in Belgium (February 25) and Strade Bianche in Italy (March 4).

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Milan-San Remo (March 18) kicks off the classics season proper in Europe, which runs well into April and includes highlights such as the Tour of Flanders (April 2), Paris-Roubaix (April 9) and Liège-Bastogne-Liège (April 23).

The opening Grand Tour of the season is the Giro d'Italia over May 6-28, which is joined by the Tour of California in the same month (May 14-21) - the USA's inaugural WorldTour event.

The Tour de France takes place over July 1-23, with the first British WorldTour event, the RideLondon-Surrey Classic, taking place on July 30.

The final Grand Tour of the year, the Vuelta a España brings the three-week stage races to a close over August 19 to September 10 with the WorldTour season ending in Italy on September 30 with Il Lombardia.

Points will be awarded to riders who finish highly in all races, with a season-long WorldTour ranking updated after every event for individual riders, teams and nations. Peter Sagan (Tinkoff) topped the table in 2016.

UCI WorldTour 2017 calendar