Deemed to be the hardest stage in the history of the Tour Down Under, stage 2 from Norwood to Uraidla lived up to its reputation with UAE Team Emirates-XRG obliterating the field on the second ascent of the Corkscrew with Jay Vine taking the win ahead of teammate Jhonatan Narváez with Adam Yates in the chase group.
Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) rounded off the podium in the chase group, almost a minute down. The race seems to be completely done at the halfway point in the race. Narváez struggled to follow Vine over the Corkscrew, and so the team decided to let Vine take the win ahead of Narváez.
“The jersey has been on my mind since the last time I wore it. I love this jersey, so good to win it on such a hard stage. We’re in a good position with me and Jhony [Narváez] and with Adam [Yates] behind, being led out by him was great,” Vine said.
“We’ve still got a sprinter here in [Juan Sebastian] Molano, still gonna try and get as much as we can in this race. Mikkel [Bjerg] and Vegard [Stake Laengen] were amazing today.”
The first mountain stage shook up the general classification with Vine taking over the ochre jersey. Overnight leader Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon-CMA CGM) retained the blue sprint jersey that he held due to his stage win on stage one. The white jersey returns to Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost) while Martin Urianstad (Uno-X Mobility) retained the mountains jersey after another tough day in the breakaway.
Stage three is a new one for the race with the start in Henley Beach and finishes 140.8km later in Nairne. It is possible to be a day for the sprinters again, but it won’t be easy for the fast men with plenty of climbing across the day.
How it unfolded
Day three, stage two, started in Norwood in lovely Australian summer conditions before the riders headed to Uraidla on a 148.1km course with plenty of climbing. The first ascent up Ashton came straight after the flag drop. After that, the riders carried on climbing up on the uncategorised Mount Lofty, where there is major worry for bush fires in the coming days, then to a double ascent of the Corkscrew climb.
At the beginning of the day, the ochre jersey was being worn by stage one winner Lund Andresen, Urianstad in the green and white King of the Mountains jersey, Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) wearing the blue points jersey on Lund Andresen’s behalf and, finally, Brennan in the white young rider’s jersey.
It was a very cagey neutral zone with lots of riders wanting to be close to the front of the peloton. However, when the flag was dropped by race director Stuart O’Grady, no-one was keen to launch with UAE Team Emirates-XRG setting a firm tempo.
After a couple of kilometres, Joel Suter (Tudor) launched solo. He was constantly looking around while not fully committing. Fortunately for him, Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech) kicked across to join. They were then joined by KOM jersey Urianstad and the youngest man in the race Lucas Stevensen (Australia).
This looked as though it would be the break of the day with four riders. This wasn’t the case, though. Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious) and Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-QuickStep) kicked across the gap with Storm Ingebrigtsen (Uno-X Mobility) chasing them. The Norwegian made it across but invested a lot of energy to get there with just 2km from the top of the Ashton climb.
When the riders made it to the final 300 metres of the Ashton climb, Urianstad looked around and seemed to ask if he was allowed to go clear to take the points. For a moment, it seemed that everyone was fine with that until Reinderink came exploding out of the group to take the seven points with Urianstad taking five, Stevenson three and Suter one.
The peloton was keen on keeping a pretty tight leash on the break, with the gap not going above two minutes until around 125km to go, with the peloton calming down for feeds and natural breaks.
As the riders crossed the finish line for the first time in Uraidla, the gap was drifting out to two and a half minutes between the break and the bunch. UAE Team Emirates-XRG were doing most of the work with Decathlon-CMA CGM and Ineos Grenadiers sitting just behind them.
The intermediate sprint in Lobethal came just after the 100km to go mark. It was the Australian criterium champion and sprinter, Plowright, who took the three points and bonus seconds, followed by Reinderink and Urianstad.
Lots of teams came to the front with 92km to go, about 20km from the bottom of the Corkscrew with Jayco-AlUla, Visma-Lease a Bike, Lotto-Intermarché and UAE Team Emirates-XRG all pushing the pace very hard to keep their GC leaders well placed on the long descent to the climb.
Luke Durbridge (Jayco-AlUla) took over leading the bunch with his leader, Ben O’Connor, on his wheel. Various teams attempted to challenge the former Australian champion but he was powering on the front of the bunch to keep his man safe and well placed. The pace was so high in the bunch that the commissaires pulled out the cars at the start of the Corkscrew climb despite them having a 1’48” gap heading onto the ascent.
Right at the bottom of the Corkscrew, defending champion Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) had a mechanical. It wasn't ideal but the Ecuadorian national champion was back in the cars very quickly and safely back into the peloton again. At the front of the bunch, Jayco-AlUla sent Kelland O’Brien out ahead of the bunch.
The first passage of the Corkscrew was very similar to the Ashton KOM sprint with Reinderink sprinting clear to take the 10 points and Urianstad rolled across in second place with Miholjevic taking the final points. Behind them, O’Brien continued his effort and made it over the climb before eventually being caught with 70km to go after what was a rather unusual move that may not have even been intentional. The gap dipped under a minute soon after that as UAE Team Emirates-XRG upped the pace again with Narváez back in the first few wheels after his technical issue.
At the second and final intermediate sprint of the day, which took place at the penultimate passage of the finish line in Uraidla, was taken once again by Plowright ahead of Miholjevic and Urianstad. The riders then embarked on the final 60km of the day. The break clearly added a bit of fresh impetus at this point as the gap went back over 1’20” again.
Several teams returned to the front with a little over 35km to go to keep their GC leaders safe. Jayco-AlUla, Lidl-Trek, Decathlon-CMA CGM, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Visma-Lease a Bike, XDS-Astana and Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe all battled each other to take the lead in the peloton. The gap had gone out to the break again, however, at 1’45” after dropping down to as little as 50” on the first ascent of the Corkscrew. But the pace change in the peloton behind was telling on the timer, and a minute was sliced off the break’s advantage very quickly.
In the breakaway, it all started to break up with Reinderink, Urianstad and Miholjevic leaving the rest behind. Back in the peloton, NSN started drilling flat out and stringing the peloton out as the peloton took on a very different look with just 30” up to the break. NSN didn’t last long, though, with Welsford taking over for Ineos Grenadiers. This brought Suter, Stevenson and Ingebrigtsen back.
Miholjevic and Reinderink attacked Urianstad as he was clearly struggling but he did manage to hold on. It was all for nothing in the end, though, as they were swept up by the peloton led by Lidl-Trek, XDS-Astana and Ineos Grenadiers with just under 20km to go. Miholjevic went solo to try and stay away, but he was reeled in easily.
It was all together as the long list of teams jostled for the front on the early slopes of the Corkscrew. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe, Lidl-Trek and UAE Team Emirates-XRG tried taking control but it was Movistar who took over early on to then hand over to UAE Team Emirates-XRG with Jay Vine in second wheel.
Several riders were distanced early doors on the climb including race leader, Lund Andresen, Plapp and Jack Haig (Ineos Grenadiers) who looked to be rocking and rolling due to the brutal tempo set by Yates for Vine and Narváez.
Vine launched on the steepest slopes with his teammate Narváez following as Filippo Zana (Soudal-QuickStep) led the chase in the group behind. Vine went over the top of the KOM taking the 10 points with Narváez on the wheel. The Ecuadorian looked like he was swinging on the bike with his teammate drilling the pace. Javier Romo (Movistar) tried to get a chase organised but the gap kept growing.
Harrison Sweeny (EF Education-EasyPost) managed to get clear of the chase group with Yates blocking any chase of his teammates who had half a minute on them. Natnael Tesfatsion (Movistar) also tried to go clear and he joined Sweeny, but Yates managed to join them as well.
Soon after Yates got across, Schmid, Marco Brenner (Tudor) and Zana also made it across. Brenner then attacked through that group to try and bridge the gap to Vine and Narváez with 8km to go. The chase all looked around at Yates who wasn’t working, understandably. Sweeny brought the German back, though.
Vine and Narváez, who are the only two riders in this race who have won the Tour Down Under before, pushed the gap out to 50” into the final 5km to the chasing group of six, with their teammate, Yates, sat at the back.
Narváez took over the lead of the duo into the final kilometre to just give the last bit of momentum before pulling aside to let his teammate, Vine, take the stage and the ochre leader’s jersey. Behind them, Schmid took the sprint and now completes the podium in GC over a minute down on the two UAE Team Emirates-XRG riders.
Results
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