As it happened: Jhonathan Narvaez is king of Willunga at Tour Down Under stage 5

Welcome to Cyclingnews’ live coverage of stage 5, from McLaren Vale to Willunga Hill, of the Tour Down Under. The stage starts at 11:10am local time or 12:30am GMT and finishes roughly four hours later.

Stage 3 winner Javier Romo (Movistar) tops the GC with a 4-second lead on Jhonathan Narvaez (UAE Team Emirates XRG), and 10 seconds on Patrick Konrad (Lidl-Trek) and Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe).  

A total of 28 riders, including Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), Jay Vine (UAE Team Emirates XRG), Chris Harper and Luke Plapp (Jayco-AlUla), Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL), Albert Withen Philipsen (Lidl-Trek) and defending champion Stephen Williams (Israel-PremierTech), are under one minute.

18-year-old Philipsen tops the best young rider classification. Fergus Browning (ARA Australia) leads the mountain classification while double stage winner Sam Welsford (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe) leads the points classification.

It’s the big day – Willunga! 

Stage 5 of the Tour Down Under in under 10 minutes. The 145.7km stage features two ascents of the iconic climb in the last 25km, making this stage another leg-breaker. Riders get a warm-up on Wickham Hill in the opening of the stage. The category 1 climb precedes a relatively sedate middle 80km before the key Willunga Hill ascents where the winner of the 2025 Tour Down Under will be decided.

Perfect weather to tackle Willunga today, with temperatures at 24C and mostly sunny.

We’re riding through the 2.4 neutral zone before Stuart O’Grady drops the flag at KM 0. 

Last year, Oscar Onley (Picnic PostNL) won the Willunga stage, and almost beat the strava record.

And we’re off and racing! 

And immediate attack from 3 riders.

Eenkhoorn made the first attack with plenty of riders trying to get into the breakaway. It’s going to be pure chaos trying to get away today.

Arkea, Australia, Jayco all covering moves as the peloton goes up a slight uphill.