Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates–XRG) secured his second career victory at the Santos Tour Down Under, adding to his first title in 2023. The Australian took control of the race on stage 2, launching a powerful acceleration alongside defending champion Jhonatan Narváez that no one else could follow, with the pair finishing first and second on the stage.
After losing two teammates, including Narváez, to crashes on the shortened stage 4, Vine also hit the deck on the final day when kangaroos jumped into the peloton. He then had to cope with the loss of two more domestiques, as Mikkel Berg crashed and Sebastian Molano was spent after pulling for much of the stage.
“It was more challenging time wise three years ago. This year, we started off more positive and we just got more and more bad luck. We were always saying it's not over until it's over but Jesus that was never more true than here,” Vine said where asked to compare his two overall victories.
“I always say kangaroos are the most dangerous animals in Australia, they wait and hide in the bushes… I hit it on its backside and went down but fortunately I'm okay but unfortunately we lost a guy.”
“I think we’re a bit disappointed all week with the result but we did 100 percent all week and to finish off today was great. We learnt from previous mistakes. It wasn’t ideal, we had Menno [Huising] who usually sorts everything but he got smacked off by a kangaroo. We stayed in a position where we needed to save energy and the boys set me up to finish off.” Brennan said.
How it unfolded
After a full week of racing, the day had come to decide the winner of the men’s 2026 Santos Tour Down Under. The stage took place around the town of Stirling, just south east of Adelaide with a circuit of around 22km with eight laps coming together to make a stage that was 169.8km long. Fortunately for the riders, the temperature dropped significantly after stage four, with the stage starting in the mid 20s and going up to the low 30s.
Racing began almost straight after they rolled off the start line in Stirling and the attacks came immediately from Baptiste Veistroffer (Lotto-Intermarché) and Eenkhoorn with a few others but it was dragged back very quickly. Veistroffer tried a few more times before Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-QuickStep) tried to get away with KOM leader Urianstad following his every move.
Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek) and Stannard were the next to try. The Australian dropped the Austrian as soon as he caught him. More riders tried to bridge, but they just dragged the bunch to Konrad. Stannard got the best gap up to that point while solo.
More moves came and eventually, Veistroffer got another gap along with Fabio van den Bossche (Soudal-QuickStep) with Kelland O’Brien (Jayco-AlUla) trying to join as the peloton looked to be letting the break go up the road for the day. At the back, white jersey Andrea Raccagni Noviero (Soudal-QuickStep) chased back after a puncture.
O’Brien was caught, so Jayco-AlUla kicked things off all over again in the peloton with Luke Plapp. UAE Team Emirates-XRG marked that move with Ivo Oliveira. However, this move split a group of about 10 riders, which included all of the major teams involved in the GC fight. It all eventually came back together with a new move immediately coming from Plapp with Alexander Cepeda (EF Education-EasyPost) and Reinderink with Damien Howson (Australia), Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ United) and Chris Hamilton (Picnic-PostNL).
Reinderink took the first KOM points of the day with seven points ahead of Howson, Hamilton and A. Cepeda. Shortly after that, Reinderink was caught, and a new move of Plapp and Eenkhoorn went clear yet again and it looked, for a moment, like that would be the break of the day with UAE Team Emirates-XRG controlling the peloton. Stannard jumped across the gap but several more riders were trying to bridge.
Reinderink, Veistroffer and more were all trying to bridge. With Reinderink up there, Urianstad finally invested and joined the counter move and that dragged the peloton back to the counter move. Finally, the peloton completely blocked the road and the trio went clear to be the break of the day.
Plapp, Stannard and Eenkhoorn went clear and quickly got a good gap but Plapp had a rear puncture and caused a bit of drama. The Australian had a very long change from neutral service and then was given a sticky bottle without taking the bottle but they all came back together with just under three minutes of a gap over the peloton inside 130km to go.
The first intermediate sprint of the day came in Heathfield with Eenkhoorn taking the first spot ahead of Stannard and Plapp with the three, two and one points and bonus seconds. The gap dropped to just over two minutes thanks to the pace set in the peloton by Juan Sebastian Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) with the entire Visma-Lease a Bike team on his wheel working for Matthew Brennan.
Molano was doing a strong bit of work for his team and race leader, Vine. So strong, the gap dropped to a minute and a half with around 100km to go. The second of four KOM sprints came with Plapp taking first ahead of Stannard and Eenkhoorn. Back in the peloton, Urianstad went to the front of the peloton and took the final point available on that KOM, which confirmed him as the winner in the classification. He just had to finish.
With 100km to go, Movistar put in an attack with Pavel Novák launching clear. This was likely because Molano was keeping the gap up to the leading trio which was just inviting riders to launch with the 21-year-old going solo to attempt to bridge the gap. He made it across rather swiftly as well.
Suddenly, the cameras switched to the peloton with riders all over the road shortly after coming into contact with a large kangaroo. Some of the riders down were race leader Vine, as well as his teammate Mikkel Bjerg, Florian Kajamini (XDS-Astana), Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and many more. The kangaroo was slipping and falling as it panicked but, fortunately for it and the riders, it got out of the way.
Molano went back to the front for Vine after everyone dusted themselves off after the crazy crash. EF Education-EasyPost also joined the push as Molano could do no more. Visma-Lease a Bike just sat on the back of Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost) who could’ve been working for any of three options in Luke Lamperti for the sprint, Michael Leonard for the white jersey and Harry Sweeny for the podium.
Various riders had to abandon the race after the crash with Bjerg, Alberto Dainese (Soudal-QuickStep), Menno Huising (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Lucas Stevenson (Australia) all being forced to leave the race.
With 70km to go, Decathlon CMA CGM joined EF Education-EasyPost and Visma-Lease a Bike on the front of the peloton as a sprint looked more and more likely as the course didn’t appear to be as hard as some were expecting.
More time passed, and another rider from UAE Team Emirates-XRG abandoned with Molano leaving due to extreme fatigue after all the early work on the day. That left the team with only two riders to look after Vine in Adam Yates and Ivo Oliveira.
Jumping forward to 40km to go, the situation remained much the same, however, the intermediate sprint came with Eenkhoorn taking first ahead of Novak and Stannard with Plapp taking no points of bonus seconds. The gap was dropping with just over a minute between the peloton led by Decathlon CMA CGM and EF Education-EasyPost.
Plapp started to sit up and even took multiple bottles for his teammates. However, Darren van Bekkum (XDS-Astana) launched an attack from the peloton, and the Australian decided to stay with him. They then bridged to Novak, who had been dropped, and then he sat on as well. Van Bekkum and co did still have 30 seconds to close on Stannard and Eenkhoorn, though.
The chasers, led by Van Bekkum, were suddenly caught, overtaken and dropped by Chris Harper (Australia), who launched a very aggressive attack to try and join Eenkhoorn and Stannard. Behind, Van Bekkum, Novak and Plapp were caught by the peloton with Oliver Stockwell (Bahrain Victorious) on the front of the bunch as the pace was growing.
Bahrain Victorious launched Buitrago, who bridged up to his teammate, Stannard, alongside Eenkhoorn. The latter was immediately dropped, whereas Stannard stayed with him. Glivar, J. Cepeda and his Movistar teammate Javier Romo joined the Bahrain Victorious duo. Stannard did one huge turn and could give no more, leaving four riders out front into the final lap.
The four-man group was riding extremely well, with the Movistar riders doing the lion’s share of the work. Tudor, Jayco-AlUla and Lidl-Trek joined the usual teams on the front as they tried to close the dangerous new move down. NSN’s Simon Clarke went to the front to do a big pull in his final Tour Down Under stage in his career.
Visma-Lease a Bike and Decathlon CMA CGM took things up and closed the break down with one kilometre to go for Brennan and Lund Andresen. Visma-Lease a Bike gave their all but peeled off earlier; however, Brennan had slotted onto the wheel of Michal Kwiatkowski (Ineos Grenadiers) who was trying to lead out Sam Watson.
Brennan launched, but Brady Gilmore (NSN) launched over the top to go a bit long. Brennan locked onto the Aussie’s wheel, then kicked again hard and went round Gilmore and managed to hold off the fast finishing Fisher-Black and Lund Andresen.
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