Stage 5 Review
Richie Porte took his fifth consecutive win on Old Willunga Hill, but he may not defend his Tour Down Under after a fightback from Daryl Impey up the climb second time around saw the Mitchelton-Scott rider drag himself to within eight seconds at the line, taking the Ochre jersey on countback and setting up a thrilling finale around the streets of Adelaide on Saturday.
World Champion Peter Sagan, the overnight leader, cracked on the lower slopes of Willunga and fell out of contention for the General Classification whilst Dimension Data’s Tom Jelte-Slagter finished third on the day and now takes the same place overall.
A larger group than usual broke away from the start, with Scott Bowden (UniSA-Australia), Mads Würtz Schmidt (Katusha-Alpecin), Zakkari Dempster (UniSA-Australia), Fumiyuki Beppu (Trek-Segafredo) Nuno Bico (Movistar Team), Thomas De Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) and the leader of the King of the Mountains competition, Nicholas Dlamini (Dimension Data).
Bico crashed early but made his way back to the group in steady fashion, and the seven would get a gap of five minutes towards the rest of the field with Bora controlling the peloton. The first ascent of Willunga Hill set the pulse racing in the Elton, with BMC injecting pace into proceedings whilst Bahrain-Merida, Lampre, and UAE all decided to put their men at the front.
The first climb of Willunga Hill split the break, with only De Gendt and Diamini able to stay upfront. De Gendt, who had also gotten into the breakaway last year, left Dlamini behind over the top and had a gap of about a minute, but was soon to be swallowed up by a hungry peloton as the final climb of Willunga loomed in the distance.
EF Education (the team previously known as Cannondale) sensed a chance in strong winds and forced the pace, which led to the defending champion (Porte) forced into the gutter, as BMC were actually caught short by the sudden acceleration. This was an occurrence that cost him vital energy when he didn’t have quite the same condition as 12 months ago, and it, combined with the headwind, would come to tell later.
Rohan Dennis was put to work off the front end to reassert control on the lower slopes of Willunga, and this prevented what could have been a multitude of attacks until there were 1.8km to go, at which point Porte made his first big push. Jay McCarthy, now the first choice for Bora as Sagan had cracked earlier, followed his move initially but may have paid for that as Porte went again, putting him into the rest as Impey, riding the most intelligent race, passed him having held onto his effort. Egan Bernal of Sky was just about coming back at this point and was also passed, whilst Diego Ulissi put in a major dig.
Impey had more energy than any of them, and whilst Porte was celebrating over the line he managed to edge Slagter for those precious seconds which now mean the two are fighting for the title in Adelaide tomorrow.
Is short, simple, and beautifully uncomplicated. Taking place on an Adelaide circuit, there are 20 laps of a 4.5km circuit through Central Adelaide. The start is straight down King William Road taking a u-turn to go from one lane to another. Once the field have passed their original starting point (coming the other way up the road of course) they will pass through Elder Park.
There’s a hard left to take through War Memorial Drive, before turning right onto Montefiore Drive, a precursor to the last King of the Mountains’ competitions upon Montefiore Hill (only a kilometre long at 1.3%, which is taken twice, 44 and 86kms into the race.
Then it’s a right onto Pennington Terrace before turning right into the King William Road, once again.
There are two intermediate sprints on the day, which are on the exact same line as the finish but on the crossings of laps 8 (34km) and 12 (58km).
The Contenders
Four sprinters have dominated the sprints over the last week and they ought to be at the very forefront again. Caleb Ewan has been the most consistent of them and he will be aggrieved at his supposed hesitation when having the perfect lead-out from Mitchell-Scott on the run into Victor Harbour, having previously been a gutsy winner of the uphill sprint into Stirling. Elia Viani was the beneficiary of that lapse but misfire or not, he launched a deeply impressive sprint to come from fifth wheel and then win by daylight, and a repeat of such an effort would make him hard to beat.
Peter Sagan showed enough speed to take the People’s Choice Classic in what is essentially exactly the same stage as this and he is carrying a large amount of raw speed even this early in the season. The strongest lead-out probably belongs to Andre Greipel, who is served by Lars Bak, Adam Hansen, Marcel Sieberg and Jens Debusschere, and he showed it when taking the first stage, but he wasn’t present for the stage finish at Victor Harbour and must answer form questions.
Phil Bauhaus was second on the run into Victor Harbour and is a sprinter on the up who is well worth watching, whilst Simone Consonni has sprinted well for Team-UAE so far.
