Deemed to be the hardest stage in the history of the Tour Down Under, stage 2 from Norwood to Uraidla lived up to its reputation with UAE Team Emirates-XRG obliterating the field on the second ascent of the Corkscrew with Jay Vine taking the win ahead of teammate Jhonatan Narváez with Adam Yates in the chase group.
Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AlUla) rounded off the podium in the chase group, almost a minute down. The race seems to be completely done at the halfway point in the race. Narváez struggled to follow Vine over the Corkscrew, and so the team decided to let Vine take the win ahead of Narváez.
“The jersey has been on my mind since the last time I wore it. I love this jersey, so good to win it on such a hard stage. We’re in a good position with me and Jhony [Narváez] and with Adam [Yates] behind, being led out by him was great,” Vine said.
“We’ve still got a sprinter here in [Juan Sebastian] Molano, still gonna try and get as much as we can in this race. Mikkel [Bjerg] and Vegard [Stake Laengen] were amazing today.”
Stage three is a new one for the race with the start in Henley Beach and finishes 140.8km later in Nairne. It is possible to be a day for the sprinters again, but it won’t be easy for the fast men with plenty of climbing across the day.
How it unfolded
Day three, stage two, started in Norwood in lovely Australian summer conditions before the riders headed to Uraidla on a 148.1km course with plenty of climbing. The first ascent up Ashton came straight after the flag drop. After that, the riders carried on climbing up on the uncategorised Mount Lofty, where there is major worry for bush fires in the coming days, then to a double ascent of the Corkscrew climb.
At the beginning of the day, the ochre jersey was being worn by stage one winner Lund Andresen, Urianstad in the green and white King of the Mountains jersey, Sam Welsford (Ineos Grenadiers) wearing the blue points jersey on Lund…
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