The men’s Santos Tour Down Under ended with Stephen Williams in the ochre-coloured winners jersey and a special overall victory for Israel-Premier Tech after another week of entertaining and fascinating early-season racing.
The 2024 Tour Down Under proved yet again that professional racing rarely follows a script, sparking agony for some but celebration for others.
Jayco AlUla were bullish before their home race but left empty handed. Sam Welsford was sprinting for a new team but Bora-Hansgrohe were perfect in the way they led him out and he finished off the task with speed and power, announcing himself as a new sprinter on the block.
Isaac Del Toro proved that young talent can win on their WorldTour debut, while Israel-Premier Tech showed that they can race and win at WorldTour level.
The men’s Tour Down Under followed a successful edition of the women’s race, with the new RADL GRVL gravel event adding an extra dimension, alongside the huge crowds, bike Expo, daily rides and everything that is good about major WorldTour racing.
The Tour Down Under has again set the bar high. Now it’s up to every other race, rider and team to continue with a successful 2024 professional road racing season.
Cyclingnews was once again the ground in Adelaide with Australian Editor Simone Giuliani and Sophie Smith. These seven conclusions reflect everything they saw and reported on in the last week.
‘That’s bike racing’
Jayco-AlUla came into the Tour Down Under looking like the team to beat but left Adelaide in disappointment.
Luke Plapp dominated the Australian National Championships and Caleb Ewan even took the criterium title on his return to the team. It was such an impressive run that their team leader, Simon Yates joked that he was not even needed in Australia.
The team was definitely a team on a high at a presentation at a Jayco dealership, with Plapp joking that his dual Australian titles were all down to the accommodation at his training location near Bright – a Jayco caravan of course. At which point Gerry Ryan – team owner as well as the founder of the brand, chimed in that they were going to paint one green and gold for him.
The pre-race fun and games soon turned into the serious business of racing. That is when things started running less smoothly.
Ewan was unwell on the lead in to the Tour Down Under and the hoped for sprint wins didn’t come. Then before the team hit the climbs Plapp crashed, losing an extensive amount of skin and had to pull out of the race. Number 13 may be a race number he doesn't want again for a while.
The in-form Australian champion was expected to be a valuable asset when the climbs arrived, so his absence was missed.
"It hasn’t really gone our way this week to be honest but that’s bike racing," Hayman told Cyclingnews before stage 5.
There was no turning the tide after the sprints and Plapp's crash. Jayco AlUla raced hard every day but without winning a stage or a overall podium place.
Their only good memory so far of the Australia summer is the haul of green and gold jerseys they can wear for the rest of the 2024 season, as a reminder of when everything did fall into place. SG
Israel-Premier Tech triumph
It was hard not to grin as, one by one, after the final stage at the top of Mount Lofty the Israel-Premier Tech riders rolled up to their team car in the paddock.
There were hugs and roars of delight as each rider and member of the support staff got to share that winning feeling after they had worked so hard to help secure not only the stage victory atop Mount Lofty, but also the overall race.
The team that had been relegated from the WorldTour at the end of 2022 had just snatched the first prize of the WorldTour season in 2024.
Goals were not just met but expectations well and truly exceeded when Stephen Williams brought it home. It meant it was time for a well-earned celebration before the squad headed from Adelaide to Geelong for the next target – the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.
Even more impressively, they had done it despite their obvious trump card being unwell and having to leave the race.
New Zealand's Corbin Strong was the rider on the start list that many – and that includes the Cyclingnews, as the riders to watch from the squad. His second place on stage 2 to Lobethal and shift up to second on GC validated that. But then he got sick, and Plan A turned into what turned out to be a truly magnificent Plan B.
"We believed we could win it but we had some trouble throughout the week with Corbin getting sick but we pivoted really well to focus on Stevie," said sports director Sam Bewley.
"Strategically, the team was good but ultimately, the guys were just unreal. Every day, they believed in Stevie, they believed in Corbin as well, and when you are like that, you are a hard team to beat.”
Welsford's winning momentum
When riders start racing with a new team, there is usually an easing in period, an adjustment to a new lead out and support crew. But Sam Welsford didn’t need any of that.
It was a dream start when he won the very first sprint with his new Bora-Hansgrohe squad and the dream continued right through the Tour Down Under.
The first victory came in Tanunda where, after a seamless lead out, he held off Phil Bauhaus (Bahrain Victorious). His lead out team had shown Welsford just what they were capable of and he had given his new teammates the confidence that he had the ability to finish it off.
On stage 2 he was dropped on the climbs, like most sprinters, and the attackers stole the day anyway. Then stage 3 saw Bora-Hansgrohe produce another enviable lead out and Welsford another win. Then there was a third victory, even in the hectic finish of stage 4 in Port Elliot.
“Once we got the first one, you just roll that confidence on. The boys are really feeding off how good we are going and the momentum just keeps rolling,” said Welsford after the third win in four days.
It’s a promising sign for what’s to come from the Australian sprinter. He is flying high with his new team and in the space of four days he took his WorldTour win tally from one to four.
The confidence, experience and momentum generated at the Australian race is surely a good sign for what’s to come in the sprints in Europe in 2024 and then perhaps in the team pursuit at the Paris Olympic Games.
Young enough to relate, old enough to know better
The emergence of young riders was a major talking point at the Tour Down Under.
Jayco AlUla sports director Mathew Hayman summed up the fight to secure cycling’s ‘next big thing’ succinctly following stage five to Willunga Hill, which won by 21 year old Oscar Onley.
“They're getting younger and younger and it’s an arms race to find these young talents for every team at the moment,” he said.
What was not discussed - but was still no less notable – was the emergence of young sports directors calling winning shots from the convoy. Three of the four teams who won stages at this year’s race all had sports directors under 42 years of age.
Bernhard Eisel, 42, and Shane Archbold, 34, who only retired from racing at the end of last season, helped guide Bora-Hansgrohe to three stage wins with Sam Welsford.
Two-time Tour Down Under champion Daryl Impey, 39, and Sam Bewley, 36, who called time on his racing career at the end of 2022, steered Stephen Williams to a stage triumph atop Mount Lofty that secured the Briton the race title.
Marco Marcato, 39, directed Mexican Isaac Del Toro at UAE Team Emirates to perhaps the most bold and brazen win of the whole race on stage two, when he foiled the sprinters with a late solo attack.
The oldest, but certainly not old, of the four was dsm-firmenich PostNL DS Luke Roberts, 46, who helped to strategise Oscar Onley’s victory on Willunga Hill.
An international podium
There was once a time when Australians could take on their home nation WorldTour race safe in the knowledge that they would come in with a two fold advantage over much of the field: They would be used to the hot weather of the Australian summer and they would come in having amped up their training earlier than their international rivals.
That has all changed now.
“Not only us but all of the teams that are here, we have all changed our philosophies in training," Neil Stephens, sports director at Bahrain-Victorious told Cyclingnews.
"Whereas the old days we sort of used to come out and do a little bit of light training in December and start hard training in January ready for the season - these days we are really training very hard."
"At our training camp in December, the Tour Down Under guys were on a different level. They were all training really hard for a different event," said the former rider and long-time sports director. "That’s not just us, it's everyone in the whole race.”
Sam Welsford's charge with his new Bora-Hansgrohe team meant there was an Australian stage winner across three stages, but the other stages and overall podium belonged to the international riders.
British rider Stephen Williams (Israel Premier Tech) taking the top spot, Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narvaez (Ineos Grenadiers) was second overall, while Mexican rider Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) claimed third on his WorldTour debut.
Professional cycling has a global peloton and so does the Tour Down Under.
Isaac Del Toro's WorldTour welcome whirlwind
Sending 2023 Tour de l'Avenir winner Isaac del Toro to the Tour Down Under seem to be a logical way for the Mexican to make his WorldTour debut.
He was perhaps expected to enjoy a first taste of racing and find his feet in the WorldTour peloton. But del Toro clearly has more ambitious plans.
First he leapt away with the break in the warm-up criterium, taking third from the break as it just held off the closing array of sprinters. Then in just the second day of his first WorldTour race, he went on the charge to thwart the sprinters and win alone.
He also took the ochre-coloured leader's jersey, which meant the 20-year-old was all of a sudden thrust into the spotlight. The softly spoken Mexican all of a sudden had to front up to the podium, answer a constant stream of questions and then there was no hiding in the peloton either, not with the jersey of a race leader on his back.
Del Toro held his composure and his place on the overall until the top of Willunga Hill, where he finished eighth and slipped down to fourth.
Even then he wasn't done, launching an audacious attack in the final stage, even though so many of his teammates had been caught up in a crash during the crucial closing kilometres.
His close second place behind Stephen Williams on Mount Lofty meant another WorldTour stage podium, a third overall and he also claimed the white jersey of the best young rider.
"He has showed that he is a great rider, now I think he has more confidence in himself and it is good for the future for sure," sports director Marco Marcato told Cyclingnews after the final stage, emphasising that they would take it step by step with the new rider.
After his stage 2 win, some described his bold move as Pogacar-esque. Tadej Pogačar also debuted at the Tour Down Under the year after winning the Tour de l'Avenir, But del Toro wasn't buying into the comparison.
"I don't know, maybe for the future ... but for the moment I try to enjoy it and stay happy," he said modestly.
Even retired, Richie still rules at Willunga
Long known as the king of Willunga Hill, thanks to a run of six wins on the climb, Richie Porte was back racing this year, in a time trial event.
Porte was last off, so the fans along he climb again got the experience of seeing the Australian fly by, understanding just what it took to deliver such a staggering record on the climb.
And even though he wasn't up to his 2020 pace, when he set the Strava KOM of 6:34, a clearly still fit Porte was the fastest up the climb with 17-year-old Max Goold, who was recently third at the National Championships junior road race, coming closest to Porte.
"It’s only a matter of time before we have the next Cadel Evans winning the Tour de France," said Porte.
"Events like this are probably going to inspire a WorldTour bunch each day and we saw Sarah Gigante ride and everyone eye’s lit up a little bit last weekend."
Women's Tour Down Under winner Gigante (AG Insurance-Soudal) also joined the fray, having entered the time trial before claiming the stage and overall in the Women's WorldTour race just in case someone stole her QOM on race day.
She took advantage of the opportunity to lower her own mark, set in 2021 at the Santos Festival of Cycling. Her new QOM is 7:53, down from 8:13.
Porte too still hold his KOM but it was a close call, with the winner of the Willunga stage on Saturday, Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL), just one second off the time Porte set in 2020.
