As every year, the Tour Down Under takes place on the roads surrounding the city of Adelaide in a competition that will be disputed in six stages that will take place between Tuesday, January 21 and next Sunday, January 26.
After an intense preseason, it’s time to dust off the bibs. Although some minor races have already taken place, now it can be said that a new road cycling season begins with the traditional start of the Tour Down Under, a race that some of the best cyclists in the world choose to shine and give their first competitive pedal strokes of this 2025.
There will be six days without excessive mileage, but with more than enough terrain to crown a complete cyclist in what is the first World Tour category race of 2025 in a year in which scoring as many points as possible becomes vital for many teams in the peloton that are not guaranteed their place among the top 18 squads at the end of the campaign in a year in which the licenses for the next three years in the top category are to be decided.
Despite having, according to the official website of the race, broadcasting rights for Europe, neither Teledeporte, the sports channel of RTVE, nor Eurosport have the Tour Down Under 2025 on their schedule for the next few days. In the case of the latter, probably due to the coincidence with the Australian Tennis Open, which has all its media during these days.
As usual, the Tour Down Under, being an early season race, does not offer cyclists excessively hard routes, neither for the mileage, which does not exceed the 157 kilometers that the fourth stage has, nor for the hardness of its routes, in which there is a predominance of leg-breaking roads and small hills placed to give a little salt to the race.
Compared to the last editions, the absence of a stage that faces Lofty Hill is striking, so the fifth stage, to be held on Saturday 25, will be the most relevant with the finish, this time a classic, on Willunga Hill, a hill where the cyclists will have ridden two other times before.
In the rest of the stages, as we say, broken terrain and little ground to make many differences so that, as usual, the general will be elucidated by small details.
The first stage features the Berry Hill climb, which is tackled in a final circuit with two laps. However, the last pass is 30 km from the finish, so it seems unlikely that a mass finish can be avoided.
The second stage is much the same. The riders will have to climb Menglers Hill twice, but the last pass is located 25 kilometers from the finish, so it doesn’t look like there will be any surprises on this day either.
Perhaps on the third day we can see a different type of rider competing in the race because the peloton will have to face Knotts Hill, a short but tough climb at 8% average gradient less than 10 kilometers from the end, which will surely be a preview that will allow us to see which riders are in a position to take the overall.
An overall that will have to wait until the arrival at Willunga Hill a couple of days later to know its outcome, since neither the fourth stage finishing in Victor Harbor nor the last one, a street circuit in the city of Adelaide itself, should be relevant for anything other than the partial triumph.
With this course perspective, it is difficult to make predictions about who can take the overall victory at the Tour Down Under 2025. Obviously, we have to take into account riders like Jay Vine who have always been competitive in this race.
Nor should we forget how last year’s Tour Down Under turned out to be the debut of Isaac del Toro, who surprised everyone. However, the Mexican will not be part of this 2025 edition, so the aforementioned Jay Vine, Jhonatan Narváez, second last year; or Marc Soler will be the men to watch in a UAE Team Emirates-XRG that aims to start the year in the same triumphant way that concluded the 2024.
Of course, we will also have to take into account the winner of the last edition, the British rider of Israel-PremierTech Stephen Williams who will try to repeat the triumph achieved a year ago.
In any case, as we say, without the reference of previous races as it is the first race of the season and with such an open route, it is extremely difficult to give any kind of prediction, something that, on the other hand, is part of the attraction of the Tour Down Under and that allows us to see which riders face with more ambition this start of the campaign.
Source: www.brujulabike.com