Stages and favorites for the 2026 Tour Down Under: the World Tour kicks off in Australia

The arrival of the new year marks the end of the countdown for the start of a new season in road cycling, which, as every year, will take its first pedal strokes in the southern summer with the Tour Down Under taking place from January 20 to 25. In recent years, this event has shaken off its image as merely a preparatory race, with teams and cyclists fully engaged due to the need to accumulate points from the very first minute, especially considering that it is a World Tour race that offers a good prize.

Favorites to Win the Tour Down Under 2026

As the first race of the season, it is always difficult to make a prediction when we still do not know how the winter training has gone for various cyclists. What is clear is that the profile of the cyclist likely to win the Tour Down Under is that of a powerful man, capable of staying at the front in the fast finishes of this race without giving away those few seconds that ultimately decide the overall classification, and, of course, he must be a cyclist with enough explosiveness to make a difference in the traditional finish at Willunga Hill, which every year determines the final winner of the event.

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Obviously, when mentioning names, it is necessary to highlight Jhonatan Narváez, who was the strongest in the 2025 edition and will surely want to maintain the winning streak of a UAE Team Emirates-XRG that came very close last season to surpassing 100 victories in a single campaign.

The Ecuadorian will not be the only asset of UAE Team Emirates-XRG for this race. They also have Jay Vine in their lineup, who won the Tour Down Under in 2023, and why not, also Adam Yates, who could also be among those at the front in Willunga Hill.

We should also keep an eye on Javi Romo, who last year in this race achieved his first victory and was just a few seconds away from winning the overall classification.

Those who always aim to perform well in the Tour Down Under are the home team, Jayco-AlUla, which will count on Mauro Schmid as their best chance to try to win this race. Additionally, some other names to watch could be Santiago Buitrago from Bahrain or Simone Velasco for an Astana team that last year implemented their strategy of collecting points in practically every race.

Tour Down Under 2026 Route

This year, the Tour Down Under will consist of 6 stages, starting on January 20 with the novelty that the first stage will be a time trial prologue in the streets of Adelaide. Just 3.6 kilometers, but it will represent an important change as it is one of the key moments of the event, apart from the finish at Willunga Hill, where it will be possible to see differences, albeit minimal, in time.

Although the terrain is broken, characteristic of the Australian coast, the next three stages usually offer transition days, although not always with a complete peloton given the time of the season we are in and the mentioned rolling terrain that can always lead to splits that leave some cyclists without options for the overall classification. In any case, these are stages with contained distances, very suitable for the peloton members to regain their competitive rhythm after the winter break.

From this initial journey, it is worth highlighting the 3,624 meters of elevation gain that the second stage accumulates, as we said, based on hills and the double ascent of Cornscrew Road, short but with an average gradient of 9%, the second of which is just 10 kilometers from the finish and could represent a first major selection that avoids the usual mass finishes of this race.

And, in the 4th stage, the fifth if we consider the prologue, the conclusion of the race will arrive with the traditional finish at Willunga Hill on a day that has the highest mileage of the Tour Down Under with its 176 km, during which the peloton will have to ascend more than 2,400 meters of elevation, mainly in the three climbs to this well-known hill, where differences are usually established that ultimately prove to be decisive.

At least that is what has traditionally happened in the Tour Down Under, where the last stage was reduced to a criterium-type day with a sprint finish. This will not be the case in this 2026 edition, where for the last day, the organization has prepared a demanding classic-type day around a circuit of about 35 kilometers with constant ups and downs to total a remarkable 3,436 meters of elevation gain, which will surely lead to a brutal fight for the final victory given the small differences that usually separate the top riders in the final classification.