{"id":425697,"date":"2026-01-20T15:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/425697\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T15:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T15:06:10","slug":"favorites-stage-1-tour-down-under-2026-visma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/425697\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorites stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026 | Visma"},"content":{"rendered":"

After an explosive start to the Tour Down Under<\/a> with a prologue <\/a>in Adelaide, the Australian stage race continues on Wednesday with a short and punchy stage around Tanunda. With three repetitions of a rolling climb, the fast men have to be careful not to let a potential sprint chance slip away. IDLProCycling.com takes a look ahead.Route stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026 (120.6 km)\"tour-down-under-2026-etappe-1\"\/Up and down, twists and turns: that\u2019s the best way to describe the opening stage of this Tour Down Under<\/a>. The organisers have chosen a string of local circuits around the start and finish town. Along the way, the riders will pass the finish several times before heading out for various laps around Tanunda.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t flat all the time, but the hills on the opening stage aren\u2019t frightening either. For example, Mengler\u2019s Hill averages about 3.9%, so even the strongest sprinters should be able to survive it. The accumulation of elevation gain, however, could still create surprises!<\/p>\n

Times <\/p>\n

Start: 11:10 AM <\/p>\n

Finish: around 2:03 PM<\/p>\n

Weather stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026<\/p>\n

It is gorgeous summer weather. On Wednesday, the temperature will also climb up to around 32 \u00b0C with lovely sunshine. The wind will blow moderately from the south.<\/p>\n

Favorites stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026<\/p>\n

Despite a treacherous profile, we first look to the sprinters, who have travelled to Australia in force. There will be more than enough teams wanting to control, leaving less opportunity for a breakaway. Of course, the first focus is on Visma | Lease a Bike, where Matthew Brennan finds a course that suits him perfectly. Can the Brit deliver straight away?<\/p>\n

Behind Brennan we place a group of very fast men who can handle a technical finale with a few hills. Think of Tobias Lund Andresen for his new team Decathlon CMA CGM, Juan Sebasti\u00e1n Molano will get his chance at UAE Emirates-XRG, and Ethan Vernon showed excellent legs in the prologue representing NSN.<\/p>\n

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

\"Photos-action_Tobias-Lund-Andresen_01_\u00a9P.Ballet_A.Broadway\"\/<\/p>\n

Tobias Lund Andresen<\/p>\n

INEOS Grenadiers hope to score immediately with pure sprinter Sam Welsford now in their ranks, and that\u2019s also true for Tudor and the brand-new sprint project with Maikel Zijlaard. Soudal-Quick-Step has a new sprint weapon in Alberto Dainese, and at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Danny van Poppel gets his chance in the absence of another sprinter.<\/p>\n

Picnic PostNL has Casper van Uden, who had his breakthrough in 2025, and at XDS Astana, they hope for a strong start with Aaron Gate. Finally, we name Jensen Plowright at Alpecin-Premier Tech and the young Tim Torn Teutenberg at Lidl-Trek, which should cover all the main sprint leaders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Riders who might use that final little climb to start a war? Maybe types like Jhonatan Narv\u00e1ez (UAE), Laurence Pithie (Red Bull), Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) or Luke Lamperti (EF Education-EasyPost) fancy it? Javier Romo proved last year for Movistar that a stage win in that way is quite possible. Perhaps Patrick Eddy, as the newly crowned Australian champion riding for the Australian national team, can do something with it\u2026<\/p>\n

Favorites stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026, according to IDLProCycling.comTop favorite: Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike)<\/p>\n

Outsiders: Alberto Dainese (Soudal-Quick Step), Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM), Ethan Vernon (NSN) and Sam Welsford (INEOS)
Long shots: Danny van Poppel (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), Juan Sebasti\u00e1n Molano (UAE), Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor), Casper van Uden (Picnic PostNL), Aaron Gate (XDS Astana), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech) and Tim Torn Teutenberg (Lidl-Trek)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After an explosive start to the Tour Down Under with a prologue in Adelaide, the Australian stage race…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":425698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,172195,85,198973],"class_list":["post-425697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-idl-productions","tag-sports","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425697","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=425697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/425698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}