{"id":421580,"date":"2026-01-18T17:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-18T17:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/421580\/"},"modified":"2026-01-18T17:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T17:05:09","slug":"favorites-prologue-tour-down-under-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/421580\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorites prologue Tour Down Under 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The men\u2019s race is about to get underway! The 2026 Tour Down Under<\/a> is set to start with a strong course, and riders will face a rare prologue in Adelaide. Time trial specialists are licking their lips at this opportunity. Who will take the first ochre leader\u2019s jersey? In this preview, IDLProCycling.com lines up the favourites. Course prologue Tour Down Under 2026 (3.6 km)\"proloog-tdu\"\/A very small time trial to kick off the Australian WorldTour race<\/a>. From Victoria Street, the route is predominantly straight: a full-gas effort until Victoria Park comes into view. Riders face a sharp left, then right, and left again \u2014 lots of 90-degree turns. After another left turn, there\u2019s a short push into the park.<\/p>\n

Once inside the park it gets a bit more technical, with a tight left followed by a right loop, and the finish running in a kind of zigzag toward the line. The last turns are inside the final 500 metres, with the finish nestled among trees and greenery.<\/p>\n

\"tdu-proloog\"\/Times<\/p>\n

Start: 6:00 PM local time<\/p>\n

Finish: around 8.30 PM local time<\/p>\n

Weather prologue Tour Down Under 2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s summer in Australia, so it won\u2019t be cold. After a Sunday forecast of up to 36 \u00b0C, race day Tuesday is expected to be cooler \u2014 around 29 \u00b0C in the evening when the prologue runs, potentially dropping to about 22 \u00b0C. A southwest wind at force 4 could also influence performances.<\/p>\n

Favorites prologue Tour Down Under 2026Being a great time trialist is one thing \u2014 prologues are a different discipline altogether. It\u2019s no surprise that there are several real specialists. One standout is Maikel Zijlaard<\/a> of Tudor; he claimed his lone professional victory so far in the Tour de Romandie and will be keen to strike in Australia.<\/p>\n

But competition is fierce. Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG) has also made a speciality of short efforts. He\u2019ll be joined by fellow strong rider Jay Vine, though the course might be too short and twisty for the Australian. That\u2019s not the case for Sam Watson (INEOS Grenadiers) \u2014 he won this year\u2019s Romandie prologue.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"samuel-watson\"\/Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe bring two contenders in Laurence Pithie and Danny van Poppel, though we might not expect too much<\/a> from Van Poppel on such a technical course. Kelland O\u2019Brien, a track specialist racing on home soil, should go full gas \u2014 a win in front of a home crowd would be huge.<\/p>\n

Also at the start for Jayco AlUla is Luke Plapp, but he isn\u2019t known as the smoothest bike handler. Plenty of sprinters could pop up for a surprise in a short effort \u2014 Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike), Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team), or Sam Welsford (INEOS Grenadiers) could all pull off something here. Time trialists like Matteo Sobrero (Lidl-Trek) and R\u00e9mi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ) are strong, but we\u2019ve put them in the second tier.<\/p>\n

Favorites prologue Tour Down Under 2026, according to IDLProCycling.comTop favorites: Maikel Zijlaard<\/a> (Tudor) and Sam Watson (INEOS Grenadiers)
Outsiders: Ivo Oliveira, Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates – XRG), Danny van Poppel and Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe)
Long shots: Ethan Vernon (NSN Cycling Team), Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike), Luke Plapp, Kelland O’Brien (Jayco AlUla), Matteo Sobrero (Lidl-Trek), R\u00e9mi Cavagna (Groupama-FDJ) and Sam Welsford (INEOS Grenadiers)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The men\u2019s race is about to get underway! The 2026 Tour Down Under is set to start with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,172195,221893,85,198973],"class_list":["post-421580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-idl-productions","tag-maikel-zijlaard","tag-sports","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421580","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=421580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}