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70km to go
Break of seven: Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious), Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-Quickstep), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Lucas Stevenson (Australia), Joël Suter (Tudor), and Martin Urianstad and Storm Ingebrigtsen (both Uno-X Mobilty)
Meanwhile, behind UAE went to the front of the pack, to control the pace to assist Narvaez who has a mechanical and rejoined.
KOM #2 results
Reinderink goes first, accelerates from 4th wheel, and gets no reaction. Urianstad is second again.
Urianstad looks behind him and no movement, yet.
Urianstad is leading the group with Reinderink sitting in 4th wheel. Reinderink surprised on the first KOM to take max points.
Break is still together with 500 metres to the KOM line.
Jayco’s Kelland O’Brien attacks at the front of the field.
Narvaez is the the cars, and does not have a teammate with him. Seems to have a new bike and connects to the back of the field
Narvaez has a mechanical, looks at his gears and drops back to his team car.
🇦🇺 #TourDownUnderWhat an atmosphere at the top of the Corkscrew 🤩 pic.twitter.com/hpJIww1fBNJanuary 22, 2026
Time gap is tumbling, to under 2 minutes as the break takes the turn to get onto the lower slopes of the climb.
Luke Durbridge is driving at the front with a Jayco teammate on his wheel. Red Bull lined up behind them.
In the break, Reinderink clipped out briefly to shake his leg.
Break just raced by the 5km to the top of KOM #1, the cat 1 Corkscrew climb.
Peloton is racing towards the bottom of the Corkscrew. Red Bull now moving up for Finn Fisher-Black.
Seven riders in the break are still working well together, a double rotation line.
Break is Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious), Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-Quickstep), Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Lucas Stevenson (Australia), Joël Suter (Tudor), Storm Ingebrigtsen and Martin Urianstad (both Uno-X Mobility)
It hasn’t exactly been an easy run-in to the race for last year’s runner-up Javier Romo (Movistar).
“He had a wisdom tooth taken out about four days, five days ago – since we’ve been here in Adelaide,” Matt White, who has recently joined the Spanish team, told Cyclingnews before the stage start.
The break is pushing through Cuddly Creek, with a gap of 2:35.
Jayco on the right side of the road, UAE on the other side with Lotto, Visma and Decathlon and Ineos charging up the middle.
Speeds hitting 90kmph as they speed down towards the corner that will take the riders onto the Corkscrew climb.
Jayco, Visma, UAE and Decathlon are jostling for control and for position at the front of the peloton. Lotto also pushed its way to the front.
Break is speeding downhill towards Cuddly Creek. They are still working well together as they gap holds around 2:46
Tension will start to build as the riders are 20km to the top of the Corkscrew. Teams with GC contenders are starting to move up.
It’s clear that UAE Team Emirates-XRG are a team that is being ever so closely watched by all its rivals today, particularly with Jay Vine making his form clear with his Australian time trial title win and last year’s winner Jhonatan Narváez having already reminded rivals of his knack of snaring bonus seconds when he picked up three on stage 1. It means teams are having to prepare to counter the squad on multiple fronts.
“We’ve got three guys there to play our cards,” Jayco AlUla sports director Matthew Hayman told Cyclingnews before the start of the stage, with Mauro Schmid’s speed a counter to Narváez, and then they also have Luke Plapp and Ben O’Connor.
Jayco Alula is moving forwards in the peloton.
Reinderink, who seemed to be telling the others in the break what to do for the intermediate sprint, was second across the line.
Plowright takes the intermediate sprint with no challenge from the others.
Plowright, the newly crowned Australian criterium champion, is sitting at the back of the group.
Urianstad at the front of the group with 1km to sprint.
Stake Laengen continues to set the pace at the front of the peloton, with the whole Decathlon team behind him, including the ochre jersey Lund Andresen sitting in the middle. Behind them is the Ineos squad.
Decathlon CMA CGM moves up en masse, sitting behind the UAE and Ineos rider, monitoring the front of the peloton.
Last year on stage 3, Javier Romo (Movistar) launched an attack on the descent of Knotts Hill with 6km to go to win the stage, his first UCI victory, in Uraidla.
And now the peloton, led by 2 Scandinavian riders on UAE, Mikkel Berg and Vegard Stake Laengen, cross the line, 2:24 behind the break.
The 7-rider break cross the finish line in Uraidla, to start the first of two sweeping loops through communities including Crafers, Piccadilly, Lobethal and Cudlee Creek.
Speaking of UAE, they put three riders at the front of the peloton to control the gap to the break. Behind them, are Ineos Grenadiers riders.
Let’s hear what defending champion Jhonatan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) told the Seven commentators this morning at the start in Norwood.
“Today, I think, is the really important stage is almost 400 meters of elevation. We have a strong team. We came here with a lot of motivation, and we will do our best in the stage today, with me, with Jay [Vine], we have a strong team now.
“This edition is really hard, we have a strong team, and we will try to win the race.”
Stage 1 saw two abandons following crashes: Marius Mayrhofer (Tudor Pro Cycling) and Max van der Meulen (Bahrain Victorious) both hitting the deck in a small but nasty accident.
Correction. The best-placed rider on GC is Australian Jensen Plowright, who is 8 seconds down. He is now the virtual leader on the road as the gap gets close to the 2-minute mark.
The seven riders in the break, including 2 teammates of race leader Lund Andresen.
Let’s hear what race leader and stage 1 winner Tobias Lund Andresen (Uno-X Mobility) told the Seven commentator this morning in Norwood.
“It feels really good. It’s the first time for me to wear the leader’s jersey in a WorldTour. So I’m just going to soak it in today. I think it’s a beautiful one, yeah, probably last day in the leader’s jersey as well. So I need to enjoy the moment.”
About defending the ochre jersey: “I think it would be naive if they focused on me today. I kind of just have to manage the day and get ready for tomorrow, and then we’ve got some fast climbers here, they can try and take it off me today.”
The seven rejoin at the front and push on through the feedzone with a gap of 1:38.
Battle for the KOM points with Reinderink putting in a surprise acceleration to take the maximum points (7). Urianstad is second across the line for 5 points. Stevenson was third at KOM #1.
Ingebrigtsen immediately went to the front to set the pace for his teammate Urianstad.
Suter is the highest placed rider on GC in the break, at 14 seconds down, making him the virtual leader on the road.
Storm Ingebrigtsen made it across to the six riders, making it 2 Uno-X riders in the 7-rider move with 140km to go.
Chasers catch the break making it six riders up the road with 142.5km to go.
UAE is driving the peloton as Storm Ingebrigtsen (Uno-X) is not making any headway in his chase.
The 2 riders trying to bridge up are Fran Miholjevic (Bahrain Victorious) and Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-Quickstep).
Two more riders jump from the field to try and make it across the 32-second gap. And another Uno-X rider also jumps.
UAE controlling the front already and they seem content with the four riders up the road.
KOM leader Martin Urianstad also makes it across, followed by Lucas Stevenson.
It is Joel Sutter from Tudor who powered away. And he gets a reaction, Jensen Plowright makes it across the small gap.
Tudor rider makes the first move, but gets no reaction.
And we’re racing!
Should be an aggressive start as the riders are almost going ahead of the race director’s car. Stuart O’Grady is trying to calm them down.
Riders are swarming the lead car as they warm up their legs before the start of the stage.
The riders are rolling through 5.1km neutral section on their way to the official start of stage 2.
The GC contenders will have to show if they have the legs on the 148.1km stage. Three climbs are on the agenda, with a grind up Norton Summit followed by a visit to Mt Lofty and the men’s first dual ascent of notorious Corkscrew Road.
Here’s what race director Stuart O’Grady said about stage 2: “On paper this is potentially the hardest stage we’ve had in Santos Tour Down Under history. The peloton has traditionally gone up Corkscrew and turned right into Campbelltown, but this time they’ll turn left at the top as the climb continues up Montacute Road, then back down through Uraidla for a final lap. It will be really challenging.”
Stage 1 winner Tobias Lund Andresen (Decathlon CMA CGM) leads the general classification with one second on prologue winner Sam Watson (Ineos Grenadiers), and two seconds on Ethan Vernon (NSN). But stage 2, with 3624 metres of elevation gain, is sure to shake up the standings today.
Welcome to Cyclingnews’ live coverage of the Tour Down Under stage 2, from Norwood to Uraidla. The stage starts at 11:10 am local time or 12:30 am GMT and finishes roughly three hours later.
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