Samuel Watson can call himself the first winner of 2026. The 24-year-old Brit from INEOS Grenadiers won the opening prologue of the Tour Down Under on Tuesday morning, Dutch time, and was presented with the first flowers of the season. Wearing black shorts, he spoke afterward about his long stay on the hot seat.
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Watson was one of the first riders to start in the prologue and immediately set a time of 4 minutes and 16 seconds. That put him straight onto the hotseat, which — in temperatures well above 30 degrees Celsius — proved to be quite literal. He stayed there for several hours, as it gradually became clear that no one would beat his time.
“There were quite a few guys who still made me nervous. Ethan Vernon finished right after me, just six hundredths of a second down, so I could just as easily never have sat on the hotseat,” Watson laughed on the podium. “When Jay Vine’s bar turned red, that was a huge relief. I’m so happy to start the season with a win.”
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Watson opts for black shorts; beige INEOS kit also catches the eye
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In addition to Watson’s win and Vine’s early time gain towards the general classification, the first day of the Tour Down Under was also about taking in the new team kits. Watson claimed victory in the new INEOS jersey, featuring the team’s familiar orange and the white of co-sponsor TotalEnergies.
The British rider chose to pair that jersey with black shorts, while several of his teammates were also seen in the much-discussed beige variant. With these colours, INEOS Grenadiers are clearly trying something different compared to recent years, when blue, black and red-orange tones dominated their look.
Bram van der Ploeg (35) is the proud founder of In de Leiderstrui, IDL Pro Cycling's parent site, launched in 2018. Finally, he could create stories about the sport he had followed since childhood. He is the editor-in-chief on paper, but prefers to be with his recorder next to a rider, a team bus, or in the mud at a cyclocross race. Every year, from February to the end of May, Bram follows the entire Italian cycling season, from the Trofeo Laigueglia to the Giro d'Italia, with the grand finale in October in Lombardy. During that time, he lives in Tuscany, where he has since come to call Italy his 'home'.
🗣️ « I’m so happy to start the season with a win! It’s great to have this jersey, and we’ll go a 100% for Sam Welsford tomorrow » - 🧡 🇬🇧 Sam Watson
South Australia | @santosltd#TourDownUnder | #couchpeloton