2014 Santos Tour Down Under - Stage 5

Stage 5 profile

What Baden Cooke says...

The winner on Willunga Hill could well be the race's overall winner on the queen stage of the tour. Historically, this stage has been hot and windy and these factors can drastically change the race outcome. Riders will do three laps of the larger, flatter circuit that passes along the beach before tackling the final two laps up Wilunga Hill.

After the fist passage up Willunga Hill, the hill that is famous for having Tour de France like crowds, the riders stay on a plateau for a few kms that makes chasing quite hard. Once the riders attack the climb for the final time it will be every man for himself, with a gradient reaching upwards of 10% it will be sure to sort the men out from the boys. I predict Simon Gerrans to once again be the man to beat.

Stage profile