There was a common theme running through the planning for stage 2 of the Santos Tour Down Under with the writing on the wall, in big and bold letters. UAE Team Emirates-XRG were clearly the team to beat, after all how could they be expected to be anything but a force to be reckoned with given they had two former winners on the start line in Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narváez, plus Adam Yates on board as well.
Any one of those riders alone would be a formidable contender but together what they delivered was a perfectly executed plan, that actually went even better than they had hoped.
First they controlled the situation on the first climb of the Corkscrew and then on the final effort Yates proceeded to put on the pressure to stretch and split the field, setting the scene for Vine to launch his attack and quickly pull out a gap and the only rider who ended up being able to cross it was his teammate Narváez.
“Adam did perfect and actually Narváez was supposed maybe to fall, but was able to follow,” UAE Team Emirates-XRG sports director Fabrizio Guidi told a small group of reporters, including Cyclingnews, after the stage.
“It was outstanding today, in the final with two, I think that Jay deserved the win in his country – they talked together and they arrived safely at the end. That was good.”
Vine eased off the pace a little at some points in the climb to allow Narváez to stay in touch – “I’m not gonna drop my teammate for no reason,” Vine said – and then Narváez sat up before the line and clapped as the Australian took the stage and race lead. The agreement had been made before hand that this day was for Vine but that they were best off sticking together until the end to put them in an enviable position of having two riders with a significant margin to all their rivals.
At the end of the Thursday’s stage Vine had both vanquished the frustration of previously not having won a stage at the Tour Down Under despite having claimed the race win, and was also in possession of the ochre leader’s jersey while Narváez was sitting just six seconds behind.
The gap from second spot to Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) in third was then 59 seconds – a staggering margin in a race…
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