Favorites stage 1 Tour Down Under 2026 | Visma | Lease a Bike gets a golden opportunity

Up and down, twists and turns: that’s the best way to describe the opening stage of this Tour Down Under. The organisers have chosen a string of local circuits around the start and finish town. Along the way, the riders will pass the finish several times before heading out for various laps around Tanunda.

It isn’t flat all the time, but the hills on the opening stage aren’t frightening either. For example, Mengler’s Hill averages about 3.9%, so even the strongest sprinters should be able to survive it. The accumulation of elevation gain, however, could still create surprises!

It is gorgeous summer weather. On Wednesday, the temperature will also climb up to around 32 °C with lovely sunshine. The wind will blow moderately from the south.

Despite a treacherous profile, we first look to the sprinters, who have travelled to Australia in force. There will be more than enough teams wanting to control, leaving less opportunity for a breakaway. Of course, the first focus is on Visma | Lease a Bike, where Matthew Brennan finds a course that suits him perfectly. Can the Brit deliver straight away?

Behind Brennan we place a group of very fast men who can handle a technical finale with a few hills. Think of Tobias Lund Andresen for his new team Decathlon CMA CGM, Juan Sebastián Molano will get his chance at UAE Emirates-XRG, and Ethan Vernon showed excellent legs in the prologue representing NSN.

INEOS Grenadiers hope to score immediately with pure sprinter Sam Welsford now in their ranks, and that’s also true for Tudor and the brand-new sprint project with Maikel Zijlaard. Soudal-Quick-Step has a new sprint weapon in Alberto Dainese, and at Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, Danny van Poppel gets his chance in the absence of another sprinter.

Picnic PostNL has Casper van Uden, who had his breakthrough in 2025, and at XDS Astana, they hope for a strong start with Aaron Gate. Finally, we name Jensen Plowright at Alpecin-Premier Tech and the young Tim Torn Teutenberg at Lidl-Trek, which should cover all the main sprint leaders.

Riders who might use that final little climb to start a war? Maybe types like Jhonatan Narváez (UAE), Laurence Pithie (Red Bull), Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) or Luke Lamperti (EF Education-EasyPost) fancy it? Javier Romo proved last year for Movistar that a stage win in that way is quite possible. Perhaps Patrick Eddy, as the newly crowned Australian champion riding for the Australian national team, can do something with it…

Top favorite: Matthew Brennan (Visma | Lease a Bike)