The Tour of Guangxi 2026 runs from October 13 to 18 in southern China and is the last race of the men’s WorldTour season. For the first time it ends on the climb to Nongla, and in all six editions so far the rider who won there won the race. Tom Pidcock, Juan Ayuso and the defending winner, Paul Double, are on the provisional start list.
Nongla decides the Tour of Guangxi, now on the last day
Tim Wellens won at Nongla and won the race in 2017, and so did Gianni Moscon in 2018, Enric Mas in 2019, Milan Vader in 2023, Lennert Van Eetvelt in 2024 and Double in 2025. The race was not held from 2020 to 2022. In those six editions the climb came on stage 4 or stage 5, and the winner still had a day or two to defend the jersey. On Sunday, October 18, it is the finish of stage 6, after 165.6 kilometers from Yizhou. As raced last year the climb was 3.1 kilometers at an average of 6.3 percent.
Last year Paul Magnier had won four stages and led by 26 seconds when the race reached the climb. Mikkel Honoré attacked first and Double went alone in the last kilometer, winning by nine seconds from Victor Lafay. It was his first WorldTour win, and he kept the jersey the next day to win the race by 15 seconds from Lafay and 16 from Jhonatan Narváez.
Can Tom Pidcock win his first WorldTour stage race?
Pidcock has five wins this season, among them Milano-Torino and a stage of the Tour of the Alps, and was ninth in the Tour de France. He was second in the Giro dell’Emilia on October 3 and second in Tre Valli Varesine on October 6, and he rides Il Lombardia on Saturday before he travels to China. None of his 15 career wins is a WorldTour stage race. The one stage race he has won overall is the 2025 AlUla Tour. His Pinarello-Q36.5 team is one of 22 in the race.
Ayuso, Narváez and Paul Double’s defense
Ayuso is in his first season with Lidl-Trek. He won the Volta ao Algarve and its stage to the Alto do Malhão, was third in the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and seventh in the Tour de France, and did not finish the European championship road race on October 4. Narváez was third overall here last year and sixth at Nongla. He has four wins this year, three of them stages of the Giro d’Italia. Honoré, fourth last year at 19 seconds, is on both provisional lists as well.
Double has number 1. All five wins of his career came in 2025, and he has not won this year. He abandoned the Vuelta on stage 19.
Magnier, Kooij and Jakobsen: five days for the sprinters
Magnier won five of the six stages last year, every one except Nongla. He is 22 and has 12 wins this season, the latest in Binche-Chimay-Binche on October 6. Olav Kooij, in his first year with Decathlon CMA CGM, has seven, including a stage of the Tour de France, and turns 25 on October 17, the day of stage 5. Jordi Meeus and Kaden Groves are on the lists too.
The organizers have announced Fabio Jakobsen, who won two stages and the points jersey here in 2018. His last win in a UCI race was a stage of the Tour of Türkiye on April 21, 2024, and he had surgery on both iliac arteries early in 2025. He joined Visma-Lease a Bike in August, and the team has not fully confirmed his start.
The sprinters get the 149.2-kilometer circuit race in Chongzuo on Tuesday, the one stage the organizers class as flat, and four hilly days after it. Stage 2 goes from Chongzuo to Jingxi over 179.5 kilometers, and stage 3 from Jingxi to Bama is the longest at 211.9. Stage 4, from Bama to Tian’e, has the most climbing, 2,679 meters in 164.6 kilometers, and stage 5 runs 170.6 kilometers from Jinchengjiang to Yizhou. Florian Vermeersch comes to the start from the gravel world championships in Australia, where he defends his title two days earlier.
Will there be a Tour of Guangxi after 2027?
The men’s race has a contract for 2026 and 2027, and an extension is being negotiated. The women’s one-day race, held beside the men’s since 2017, is not on this year. Race director Olivier Senn told Escape Collective that it was cut after “the government decided to withdraw the support.” Where to watch the six stages in your country is on our watch page.