Home riders among favourites in open GC field – Analysing the Tour Down Under contenders

Hot on the heels of the women's race, the men's Tour Down Under gets underway on Tuesday, opening with a 3.6km prologue around Adelaide, and culminating with a punch day around Stirling next Sunday.

Kicking off the WorldTour calendar for 2026, the South Australian race features the full complement of 18 WorldTour teams, plus one ProTeam in Tudor Pro Cycling, and an Australian national team selection.

Among the riders taking on the 759km across six stages are two former overall winners, including the reigning champion Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and four former stage winners who boast 10 stage victories between them, though sprinter Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) is responsible for six of those.

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This year's Tour Down Under route offers up a variety of stages, including the typical sprints, a short and fast prologue, some punchy days and of course the race's favourite climbs of Willunga Hill and Corkscrew Road.

With this mixture of stages, the GC is wide open for an all-rounder to take the title, or indeed, if one climber has a good day and takes enough time, that can be enough to take the overall win.

With all the starters confirmed, here is Cyclingnews' selection of riders who will be chasing the ochre jersey this week in Australia.

Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG)

UAE Team Emirates-XRG come to the Tour Down Under with undoubtedly the strongest squad, fielding both the 2025 winner in Narváez and 2023 victor Jay Vine.

A punchy all-rounder, Ecuador's Narváez is a rider whose abilities are made for the Tour Down Under, and his choice to return means he's almost certainly going to try to defend his title and the route – which isn't drastically different to the one he won on last year – will suit him well.

The only difference is the opening TT, but being so short, that shouldn't be a hurdle to a powerful rider like Narváez, and his ability to mix in both the sprints and climbs stands him in good stead.

The question will be how UAE manage their ambitions with the 2023 winner and home favourite Jay Vine in the team as well. Vine will debut his newly-reclaimed national champion's skinsuit in the TT on Tuesday, and is a dangerous rider on the hilly stages. Plus, he obviously knows how to win this race. The last time he won, the race also started with a prologue.

Ben O'Connor and Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla)

As they tend to do, Jayco AlUla are coming to their home race with a line-up worthy of the biggest European stage races, and presumably growing motivation to take a GC win – something they haven't done at the TDU since 2019 with Daryl Impey.

The headline name to try to rectify that is Ben O'Connor, who has opted to race the Australian summer and returns as a Tour de France stage winner. A climber of his calibre should be able to take on Willunga Hill and Corkscrew Road with ease, but being a pure climber isn't always the recipe for success at TDU. To win, O'Connor will have to climb well but also manage the punchier stages, too.

Like UAE, however, Jayco come to this race with options, not least Luke Plapp, who has been trying to win this race for years on end, and will likely be fired up after his runner-up spot at the National Championships in Perth. They can also look to Mauro Schmid as an option, the one non-Australian in the line-up, who won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in 2025.

Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe)

The 2026 line-up has a lot of returnees from the protagonists of 2025, and Finn Fisher-Black is one of those, coming back after taking third last January. A good climber and budding GC rider, the New Zealand rider is slowly building his stage racing pedigree, and races like the Tour Down Under are the perfect training ground for that, particularly as Australia is about as close to home as it gets for the Kiwi. Fisher-Black can use his punch on the harder days, and then has a strong team around him for the flatter ones.

Compatriot Laurence Pithie can also hope for some good results in Australia, particularly as he tries to build up for the Classics.

Javier Romo (Movistar)

The third returning podium finisher from 2025 is Javier Romo, who was runner-up behind Narvaez last year after winning the third stage and spending two days in the lead, only ceding the top spot to Narváez on the final day on Willunga Hill.

With that experience under his belt, Romo will no doubt be returning with ambitions of righting that wrong and upgrading second to first, over climbs he will have been familiarised with last year.

Lennert Van Eetvelt (Lotto-Intermarché)

Lennert Van Eetvelt was touted as a stage racing future star in 2024, but had a quieter 2025, so it will be interesting to see how he kicks off 2026 with his newly-merged and newly-WorldTour Lotto-Intermarché team – this will be their very first appearance in a race.

Van Eetvelt won the UAE Tour and Tour of Guangxi in 2024, so has a penchant for these non-European, sprint friendly stage races, and seems like a good under-the-radar pick for the ochre jersey or a spot on the podium. Motivation will be high at Lotto-Intermarche and he seems the obvious way to chase down a result.

Corbin Strong (NSN Cycling Team)

Corbin Strong is a rider very much of a similar pedigree to Narváez: a fast sprinter who is surprisingly handy in the hills, too. NSN Cycling, in their previous guise as Israel-Premier Tech, have done well at this race before, winning with Stevie Williams in 2024, and having two-time winner Daryl Impey in the car will be no disadvantage, either.

NSN have named their goal as stage wins with Ethan Vernon in the sprints and Strong on the harder days, but there's nothing to say that some good results – or that desired individual win – couldn't translate into a good GC ride for Strong, too. He won the Tour de Wallonie and Arctic Race of Norway last summer, so definitely fits the bill of an all-rounder who can put together a GC win.

Chris Harper (Australia)

With only one ProTeam racing and no Continental teams permitted to race WorldTour events, the national team had some very good riders to choose from for the Australian selection at this year's race. With Pinarello-Q36.5 not in attendance, both Chris Harper and Damien Howson will line up in the national jersey, and both could get a strong GC result, though Harper looks like the stronger option.

Harper is a solid stage racer back in Europe, and won the Queen stage of the Giro in 2025, so after departing Jayco this winter, he'll want to get his year off to a strong start for his new team. An Adelaide native, this is as local as it gets for Harper, and whilst he's sometimes got lost in a crowded Jayco team at this race, he should stand out as a leader in the Australian squad.

Keep an eye on new national Patrick Eddy for some good stage results, too, plus his trade teammate Oliver Bleddyn who was key to Eddy's win in Perth last weekend.

Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious)

Santiago Buitrago is a solid climber and stage racer who will lead a quite young Bahrain Victorious team in Australia. The 26-year-old starts 2026 off the back of 15th overall at the Vuelta a España, and is certainly one of the strongest climbers in the race, so his race will be about finding that punch to make the difference on the harder stages.

He's only taken one GC victory in his career, at last year's Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, and he is a rider who often does well in the early races, so will definitely be someone to keep an eye on.

Nicolas Prodhomme (Decathlon CMA CGM)

Twenty-eight-year-old Nicolas Prodhomme started 2025 having never won a race as a professional, and ended it with five wins and a GC victory under his belt, after a stage at the Tour of Alps seemingly opened the floodgates.

A climbing breakaway specialist, Prodhomme is perfect for the in-between climbing days that characterise the Tour Down Under, and he'll certainly be hoping that his 2025 winning streak can continue into the new year. His overall win at the La Route d'Occitanie shows he can do well in shorter stage races. This year marks the start of a new chapter for the budget-boosted Decathlon CMA CGM team, so kicking it off with a podium or win will surely be high on their priority list.

Sam Oomen and Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek)

Lidl-Trek start in Adelaide slightly rudderless, or at least without a clear leader, and no serious bunch sprinter. Their race will probably be riders going for individual opportunities, and warming the legs before the bigger goals down the line.

Their best GC hopes probably come from Sam Oomen, who has been quite quiet since joining Lidl-Trek in 2024, or Patrick Konrad, who finished in the top 10 here last year, and is a solid climber who should take these opportunities when they arise, before he returns to domestique duty.

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