Santos Tour Down Under 2015: Preview

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The 'royal' Willunga Hill(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)

The first WorldTour race of 2015 gets underway in Adelaide, Australia on Monday with a different feel to previous years. The 17th edition of the Tour Down Under will feature a familiar parcours for the peloton with the inclusion of the uphill finishes in Stirling and Willunga Hill and a final day criterium around the streets of Adelaide although with Simon Gerrans (Orica-GreenEdge) and André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) both missing, the opportunity is there for riders to make their mark on the race.

"This is a new stage, although this area has been used in the past, with a brand new finish. It's a deceptively hard finish when you are coming down the gorge and turning right as it's very steep at the bottom and if you're not in the front of the peloton, then you are asking for trouble. From the last corner to the finish line it's about 1.5km but it's one of those finishes where we will see the first significant splits in the bunch.‎

"The biggest danger on this stage for the GC contenders, or guys who want to win the stage, will be the wind. Every time we go down south to the Fleurieu Peninsula the danger for cross winds is very large and, weather permitting, the race can change drastically. It's a day for the GC riders, not to lose out, but it's a day for people who don't mind the wind to do some damage on guys who are maybe not as race fit as they are."

"The way the stage is set out, it can be windy and splits occur early in the stage, but it all boils down to the two laps up Willunga. The first lap is the first natural selection where you get rid of all the non-climbers but you still get a pretty big group going into the bottom for the last time. I guess BMC are going to have a few cards to play with two guys who will climb very fast up Willunga and that's when they need to put pressure on the non-climbers. As we saw in 2014 when Cadel lost contact in that last 300 metres, it ain't over till it's over as that split really made life hard for him to win the tour."

"It's the not the circuit that we used in 2014 or the traditional circuit we've used for the last few years but I guaranteed it will be flat and fast. Depending on how general classification is standing, this will determine the nature of this last stage. With several editions of the Tour Down Under having come down to the wire with 19 bonus seconds still available on the final day, anything can still happen."