Narváez wins on Willunga Hill: New UAE rider also takes the lead in GC at Tour Down Under

As in most editions, the stage to Willunga Hill had to bring the decision in the Tour Down Under. Before the stage, Javier Romo of Movistar was still proudly in the lead, although Narváez was already breathing down his neck. At the end of the stage, the Spaniard proved to be a resilient rider and finished second in the GC.

From the start, it was an interesting stage, which began with an attack by Pascal Eenkhoorn on behalf of Soudal Quick-Step. The Dutch rider did not get any leeway immediately, which was the beginning of a fun opening stage, where many men were eager for a spot in the day's early breakaway.

In the end, Eenkhoorn still garnered a spot in the breakaway of the day, along with Ben Swift (INEOS), Michael Hepburn (Jayco AlUla), Oliver Bleddyn (Australian selection), Pablo Torres (UAE-Emirates XRG) and Juanpe Lopez of Lidl-Trek. The two Spaniards were clearly along for other purposes and, therefore, quickly allowed themselves to be caught up, whether prompted by the team management or not.

Meanwhile, we were startled by a crash in the peloton, with several men crashing earlier. Points leader Sam Welsford was down on behalf of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe, as were Australian champion Luke Durbridge and his teammate Chris Harper of Jayco AlUla. Loe van Belle (Visma | Lease a Bike) also hit the asphalt and would ultimately not make it to the finish.

Movistar and Picnic PostNL did most of the work in the peloton, and with 25 kilometers to go, the breakaway riders were out of the race. From then on, the attacks in the peloton began, with Michal Kwiatkowski (INEOS), Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla), and others making their presence known. In the end, this proved unsuccessful, and we rode with a compact peloton to the foot of the final time Willunga Hill.

Narváez and Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) missed that first battle but were able to rectify it soon enough. Meanwhile, Leader Romo took the initiative with an attack, but RedBull-BORA-hansgrohe caught him back. Then Plapp, Narváez, and Onley accelerated with a kilometer and a half to go, with Romo in their tracks. The Spaniard did not have the qualities to match the punch potential of the others and would end up finishing with Plapp in three seconds, while Fisher-Black could still reach the wheel of Onley and Narváez from the background with a mighty push.