{"id":414758,"date":"2026-01-17T06:31:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414758\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T06:31:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T06:31:11","slug":"canadians-prominent-in-australian-worldtour-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/414758\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadians prominent in Australian WorldTour opener"},"content":{"rendered":"

The 2026 WorldTour got underway Saturday in South Australia with the first stage of the 10th Women\u2019s Tour Down Under. Kiwi Ally Wollaston took the sprint victory and the first leader\u2019s jersey after her FDJ United-Suez team worked tirelessly in the peloton. In her first day racing with Visma-Lease a Bike, Canadian Sarah van Dam placed fifth in the sprint. After winning the day\u2019s intermediate sprint, Olivia Baril was third in the GC.<\/p>\n

Preamble<\/p>\n

It would be a bit deceptive to claim the riders would be climbing Willunga Hill thrice in 137 km including a summit finish. Willunga would be the 500 metres of 3.8 percent instead of the usual 3.2 km of 7.2 percent. Thankfully, it wasn\u2019t too hot.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The abridged version of Willunga dominated Stage 1. Image by La FlammeRouge<\/p>\n

Last season, world champion Magdeleine Vallieres\u2019 EF Education-Oatley teammate Noemi R\u00fcegg claimed the title. Canada\u2019s Sarah van Dam was third in the sprint competition. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The world champion behind the director\u2019s car in the neutral zone.<\/p>\n

The other Canadians were Olivia Baril of Movistar and Human Powered Health\u2019s Maggie Coles-Lyster.<\/p>\n

At the first intermediate sprint at Aldinga Beach, Baril took maximum points and bonus seconds. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Baril takes the day\u2019s intermediate sprint.<\/p>\n

Italy\u2019s Alessia Vigilia celebrated her debut with Uno-X by staging the first WorldTour breakaway of 2026. She was free to ramble over Willunga Jr. twice. Vigilia\u2019s gap finally dropped below a minute with 15 kilometers to go. Then the lead stabilized at 50 seconds. <\/p>\n

With 5 km to go, Vallieres moved up on the right side, bringing van Dam with her.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The rainbow jersey with yellow-clad van Dam behind her.<\/p>\n

A crash with 2 km remaining delayed the peloton further. Vigilia turned herself inside out on Willunga. Finally she was overwhelmed with 200 meters to go. The Kiwi hit the gas and claimed a big win.
2026 Tour Down Under, Stage 1
1) Ally Wollaston (New Zealand\/FDJ United-Suez) 3:28:31
2) Josie Nelson (Great Britain\/Picnic-PostNL) s.t.
3) Femke Gerritse (The Netherlands\/SD Worx-Protime) s.t.
5) Sarah van Dam (Canada\/Visma-Lease a Bike) s.t.
20) Olivia Baril (Canada\/Movistar) s.t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 WorldTour got underway Saturday in South Australia with the first stage of the 10th Women\u2019s Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":414759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[174337,49,48,635,46541,174338,174339,48387,82,11588,146893],"class_list":["post-414758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2026-uci-womens-worldtour","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-magdeleine-vallieres","tag-maggie-coles-lyster","tag-olivia-baril","tag-sarah-van-dam","tag-sports","tag-spotlight","tag-tour-down-under"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=414758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/414758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/414759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=414758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=414758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=414758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}