The Tour of Guangxi is a sprinters’ race decided on a few kilometres of climbing. Since 2017 the overall has always been settled at Nongla, the finish in the Mashan park: whoever won up there won the race, six times out of six. Until now there was always at least one more stage after Nongla. Not this year. The race reaches the top on Sunday 18 October, the last day of the last WorldTour race of 2026.
The route: six stages, 1,041 km
The race starts on Tuesday 13 in Chongzuo. In all, 1,041.4 km and 11,513 metres of climbing. Day one is a flat circuit. Stages two and three share their start and finish with the Chongzuo-Jingxi and Jingxi-Bama stages of 2024 and 2025, all four of which ended in a bunch sprint. Then come two new stages: Bama-Tian’e, with 2,679 metres of climbing and the last classified climb 52 km from the line, and Jinchengjiang-Yizhou. From Yizhou, on Sunday, the race heads to Nongla.
| Date | Stage | Km | Finale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tue 13 | 1 · Chongzuo → Chongzuo | 149.2 | Flat circuit |
| Wed 14 | 2 · Chongzuo → Jingxi | 179.5 | Climb 30 km out, then a long uphill drag |
| Thu 15 | 3 · Jingxi → Bama | 211.9 | Last climb 29 km out |
| Fri 16 | 4 · Bama → Tian’e | 164.6 | Last climb 52 km out, then downhill |
| Sat 17 | 5 · Jinchengjiang → Yizhou | 170.6 | Last climb 49 km out, flat finish |
| Sun 18 | 6 · Yizhou → Nongla | 165.6 | Summit finish |
The profiles, stage by stage
Altitudes from the organiser’s official route schedule, a point every few kilometres: between points the profile is dashed.
Nongla, longer than it is marked
On paper Nongla is a first-category climb of 3.1 km at 6.1%, with stretches at 14%. But the KOM banner is 1.4 km from the line, and the road keeps climbing: from the foot to the finish it is 4.5 km01, at about 7% on average. The finish is expected between 13:43 and 14:03 local time, between 7:43 and 8:03 in Italy.
Three possible finishes, usually just one
A sprint, a breakaway or the GC riders. From 2018 to 2025 the Tour of Guangxi raced 30 stages, and 25 of 3002 ended in a bunch sprint, with the first twenty within five seconds of the winner. Even the hilly ones: last year the stage with the most climbing, 2,676 metres, went to Paul Magnier in a sprint. The race was not held from 2020 to 2022.
The other five are the Nongla finishes. Under the rule we use to count breakaways they would be breakaways: the winner, that morning, was not among the top five overall. But on the morning of Nongla the top five have always been sprinters or rouleurs. In 2025 they were Magnier, Jordi Meeus, Pavel Bittner, Max Kanter and Stan Dewulf; Paul Double, who won, was fourteenth. Up there the winner has always attacked on the final climb from the group of the best, with the first twenty across the line inside a minute. They are GC finishes. A breakaway has never made it to Nongla.
The roll of honour, a few seconds apart
Six editions, six different winners, none with more than 15″03 over the runner-up. The only Italian to have won it is Gianni Moscon, in 2018; the other Italian on the podium is Diego Rosa, third in 2019. Italians have won four stages: Moscon and Matteo Trentin in 2018, Elia Viviani and Jonathan Milan in 2023.
| Year | Winner | Margin at Nongla | Final margin | Second and third |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2017 | Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) | s.t. | 6″ | Bauke Mollema, Nicolas Roche |
| 2018 | Gianni Moscon (Sky) | 5″ | 9″ | Felix Großschartner, Sergei Chernetskii |
| 2019 | Enric Mas (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | 1″ | 5″ | Daniel Felipe Martínez, Diego Rosa |
| 2023 | Milan Vader (Jumbo-Visma) | 2″ | 6″ | Rémy Rochas, Ethan Hayter |
| 2024 | Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto Dstny) | 2″ | 5″ | Oscar Onley, Alex Baudin |
| 2025 | Paul Double (Jayco AlUla) | 9″ | 15″ | Victor Lafay, Jhonatan Narváez |
Who is there
There are 154 starters, seven per team, in 22 teams. Nine of them have already won 15 stages here: five by Magnier last year, two each by Fabio Jakobsen and Olav Kooij. For the overall there are two former winners: Double (2025), wearing number 1, and Milan Vader (2023), who rides with Tom Pidcock at Pinarello-Q36.5. Then Jhonatan Narváez, third last year, Daniel Felipe Martínez, second in 2019, Rémy Rochas, second in 2023, Juan Ayuso and Kevin Vauquelin.
Twelve Italians, no Italian team
For the sprints there are Alberto Bruttomesso, third and fourth on two stages in 2024, and Daniel Skerl, fourth and fifth last year, both at Bahrain-Victorious; then Manlio Moro (Movistar) and Matteo Milan (Groupama-FDJ United). For the hilly stages and for Nongla, Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek), who won a stage of the Tour of Austria this year, Davide Formolo (Movistar), Alessandro Pinarello (NSN), a stage winner at O Gran Camiño, Samuele Battistella (EF Education-EasyPost) and Nicola Conci (XDS Astana). With them Vincenzo Albanese and Mattia Agostinacchio (EF Education-EasyPost) and Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek). The last Italian to win a stage here was Jonathan Milan, in 2023. At Nongla, Moscon in 2018. Stages and standings, day by day, are on the race page.
Sources
- Tour of Guangxi, the organiser’s website: stages, distances, climbing, profiles, classified climbs and timetables; the 22 teams and the 154 entries with race numbers.
- UCI official results (dataride.uci.ch), in the fagIAnata archive: stages and standings from 2018 to 2025, the sprints, the Nongla finishes, the morning standings, the 2026 wins of Bagioli and Pinarello.
- Wikidata (CC0), in the fagIAnata archive: the 2017 standings and the 2026 WorldTour calendar.
- Wikipedia, Tour of Guangxi and 2017 Tour of Guangxi: the editions not held, the 2017 stages and standings.
- Velomotion, Wellens at Nongla (22 October 2017); Radsport-News, Moscon at Nongla (19 October 2018); Velon, Mas at Nongla (20 October 2019); Tour, Vader at Nongla (15 October 2023); Tour, Van Eetvelt at Nongla (19 October 2024); Escape Collective, Double at Nongla (18 October 2025): how the stage was won up there.
- Tour, the routes of 2024 and 2025: the 2024 and 2025 stages and the climbing of the 2025 stages.
- ProCyclingUK, Tour of Guangxi 2026 full route guide (30 September 2026): the new stages of 2026.
Written with the help of Mnemosyne.