Tour Down Under: Tobias Lund Andresen holds off speeding Matthew Brennan to win tight stage 1 sprint
Dane takes ochre leader's jersey as Sam Welsford is third in Tanunda
After a long, hot and quiet day on the bike it came down to the fast men in Tanunda for stage 1 of the Tour Down Under 2026 with Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM) shocking the biggest names of Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike) to take the win.
It was a perfect leadout by Tord Gudmestad for Lund Andresen who was dropped off in sight of the line. Brennan and Welsford came up very late to try and get by the Danish rider, but it wasn’t to be and Lund Andresen held them off. Brennan finished second ahead of Welsford who was third.
"This feels amazing, I can't remember the last time I felt like this. The new team, the bike is so fast, my teammates did so well," said Lund Andresen.
"I think you have to be a little bit stupid to be a sprinter but I think it went really well. I think I’ll give tomorrow a bit easier on the Corkscrew. It is always amazing to wear a leader's jersey, especially in a WorldTour race."
There was a lot of activity in the peloton very early as the break tried to form but the big favourites for the race overall wanted the bonus seconds at the first intermediate sprint of the day.
However, after that was done and dusted and last year’s winner Jhonatan Narváez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) took his customary three bonus seconds a new break formed and that was the race set for the next 100km with the three leaders not contesting any of the KOM or intermediate sprints. But it came down to the expected sprint in Tanunda.
Lund Andresen now leads the general classification with a one-second margin on prologue winner Sam Watson (Ineos Grenadiers). Ethan Vernon (NSN) is a further one second down in third place.
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Day three, stage 2, is a brutal day with lots of climbing over the 148.1km route from Norwood to Uraidla with one ascent of the Ashton climb and two ascents of the brutal Corkscrew. The finish comes shortly after the top of the Corkscrew after a few more undulating roads after the KOM points. The ochre jersey is likely to change again tomorrow with Watson and Lund Andresen both likely only having the jersey for a day.
How it unfolded
It was another hot day in South Australia as the riders took on the first road stage of the men’s Tour Down Under 2026 with stage one starting and finishing in Tanunda with 120.6km of racing with it largely being over three laps of a course that was roughly 30km long. The highs in temperature were around 27 degrees Celsius.
The riders rolled off the start line and into the neutralised zone with Watson in the ochre leaders jersey after his win in the prologue with Ethan Vernon wearing the blue points jersey on his fellow countryman's behalf. Michael Leonard (EF Education-EasyPost) rounded out the jersey wearers as he wore white as best young rider. The mountain jersey saw its first points handed out on this stage.
The attacks went very early on after race director Stuart O’Grady waved the flag to start the race. It was a two man move of Martin Urianstad (Uno-X Mobility) and, interestingly, Guillaume Martin-Guyonnet (Groupama-FDJ United). One other rider launched across the gap, he was Marco Brenner (Tudor) making a three-man move.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG went straight to work on the front of the peloton to control for their leaders Jay Vine and Narváez as well as their sprinter, Juan Sebastian Molano. The gap came down very quickly as the bunch edged closer to the first intermediate sprint with three, two and one bonus second(s). The break was swept up by UAE Team Emirates-XRG and the rest of the peloton with the UCI WorldTour top team from 2025 drilling the pace for the sprint in Lyndoch.
Unsurprisingly, defending champion Narváez easily took the first intermediate sprint and took three bonus seconds ahead of Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor) and Molano. Zijlaard moved to just three seconds off the lead thanks to his two bonuses.
Soon after the intermediate sprint, Urianstad launched another move and was solo for a small while with Martin-Guyonnet rejoining his original break partner. However, this time, he brought a friend with Enzo Paleni (Groupama-FDJ United). A little bit after that Matthew Greenwood (Australia) launched out of the peloton in a solo bid to bridge up to the trio.
Back in the pack, Ineos Grenadiers and Visma-Lease a Bike were propped on the front for their sprinters, Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) and Matthew Brennan (Visma-Lease a Bike). A real statement of intent by the teams. Relatively new ground for Ineos Grenadiers to be working for a sprinter but it has worked well in the past with the likes of Caleb Ewan, Elia Viviani and Mark Cavendish.
Greenwood really was in no-mans-land. He got as close as 16” but started to fade shortly after crossing the start finish line in Tanunda. He had a long way to drop back as well so he kept plugging away and, after the gap went back out to 28” he managed to pull things back again. As they started the first of three ascents of Menglers Hill, the gap to Greenwood ballooned and he realised it wasn’t happening.
There was a small crash that involved multiple riders with Max van der Meulen (Bahrain Victorious) taking the worse of it and abandoning the race. Other riders to go down were white jersey Leonard and Pietro Mattio (Visma-Lease a Bike) with a few others disturbed by the accident.
The first sprint for the king of the mountains points came with Martin-Guyonnet, Paleni and Urianstad battling it out on Menglers Hill with Urianstad taking the maximum five points with absolutely no battle from the Groupama-FDJ United riders with Paleni taking three points and Martin-Guyonnet with the two.
After the riders rolled through Tanunda, the break had a gap of 2’35” on the peloton. At the second passage of the line the gap had dipped under two minutes as Ineos Grenadiers and Visma-Lease a Bike started to rank up the tempo into the final 60km of the first road stage of the race.
When the riders came to the second intermediate sprint which took place in Angaston, it was much like the first KOM and was uncontested. Martin-Guyonnet took the three bonus seconds ahead of Paleni and Urianstad in two and one second(s). The same happened again on the second KOM with Urianstad rolling through for max points on Mengler’s Hill.
There were a lot of nerves in the bunch in the final 40km as the wind had picked up a bit. Teams like Jayco-AlUla, UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Picnic-PostNL, Bahrain Victorious and Lotto-Intermarché all joined Ineos Grenadiers and Visma-Lease a Bike on and around the front.
It was just over a minute between the break and the peloton when the riders crossed the start/finish team for the penultimate time in Tanunda.
About 10km later and it was the final intermediate sprint of the day back in Angaston with Martin-Guyonnet taking the max of three bonuses again ahead of Urianstad and Paleni. The French climber then sat up and allowed his teammate, Paleni along with Urianstad, to go away to go up the final ascent of Menglers Hill. Urianstad took the final KOM and then immediately sat up to rejoin the peloton. This left Paleni solo and he pushed hard but was caught with 7km to go.
Several teams jostled for position to head into the final 5km with a real glut of world class sprinters. Several teams led into the final kilometre but Ineos Grenadiers looked to be the dominant force. They got swamped with about 500 metres to go and it was Decathlon CMA CGM who took it up in the perfect moment by Norwegian leadout man Tord Gudmestad for Tobias Lund Andresen.
Welsford was boxed in but still managed third and Brennan was a long way back but was by far the fastest finisher to take second on the day.
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Tim Bonville-Ginn is a freelance writer who has worked with Cyclingnews since 2023 usually on the live reports. Tim has worked in cycling for many years and has written for some of the biggest publications in cycling media.
He started working as a volunteer for ByTheMin Cycling while at school before getting his first work with Eurosport while still at university. Since then, he worked full-time for Cycling Weekly and has gone on to have a successful freelance career working for Cyclingnews, Rouleur, Cyclist, Velo and many more.
Recently, Tim has also commentated on races in the British National Series for Monument Cycling TV and worked as a media manager for pro teams Human Powered Health and Global6 United.
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