<\/p>\n2026 Santos Tour Down Under<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n
Ecuadorian Narvaez of UAE Team Emirates claimed the ochre jersey in Adelaide in 2025 after a dramatic victory atop Willunga Hill, finishing ahead of Spain\u2019s Javier Romo of Movistar Team.<\/p>\n
Switzerland\u2019s Ruegg won the women\u2019s race last year, edging Dutch rider Silke Smulders.<\/p>\n
Strong UAE And Australian Contingent Headlines Men\u2019s Field<\/p>\n
UAE Team Emirates will also field 2023 Tour Down Under winner Jay Vine, who is coming off a standout season that included winning the mountains classification at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a for the second consecutive year.<\/p>\n
The squad is joined by British star Adam Yates, a Grand Tour stage winner and overall champion at the Tour de Suisse, Tour de Romandie, and Volta a Catalunya.<\/p>\n
The five-stage men\u2019s race, running from January 21 to 25, will feature 140 riders from all 18 UCI WorldTeams, along with Swiss ProSeries outfit Tudor Pro Cycling, owned by retired great Fabian Cancellara.<\/p>\n
Team Jayco AlUla\u2019s general classification hopes rest with Ben O’Connor, who produced a world-class performance on stage 18 of last year\u2019s Tour de France over three Alpine climbs.<\/p>\n
He will be supported by road captain Luke Durbridge, Grand Tour stage winner Luke Plapp, and Paris Olympic team pursuit gold medalist Kelland O’Brien.<\/p>\n
Australian sprint star Sam Welsford, winner of six Tour Down Under stages over the past two years, will make his debut with Ineos Grenadiers.<\/p>\n
Record Women\u2019s Field Set For Adelaide Opener<\/p>\n
The women\u2019s race will feature its strongest field yet, with 90 riders representing all 14 UCI WorldTeams for the first time.<\/p>\n
Ruegg returns alongside newly crowned world champion and EF Education-Oatly teammate Magdeleine Vallieres, while Lidl-Trek\u2019s lineup includes three-time Tour Down Under winner Amanda Spratt.<\/p>\n
The three-stage women\u2019s race will run from January 17 to 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are thrilled with the quality of the field for both men\u2019s and women\u2019s races at this year\u2019s Tour Down Under,\u201d said race director Stuart O\u2019Grady. \u201cThe strength of this year\u2019s field reflects the increased difficulty of the courses, with longer stages and more climbs.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tour Down Under champions Jhonatan Narvaez and Noemi Ruegg will return to defend their titles at the season-opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":391587,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-391586","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=391586"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/391586\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/391587"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=391586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=391586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=391586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}