Samuel Watson won the men’s prologue of the Tour Down Under. In a 3.6-kilometer blast against the clock, the British road race champion riding for INEOS Grenadiers was six hundredths of a second faster than Ethan Vernon representing NSN Cycling. Maikel Zijlaard was an outsider for Tudor Pro Cycling, but didn’t have the legs to compete for a stage win.
ADVERTISEMENT
As evening fell in Adelaide in sunny, warm Australia, we awoke after a night of frost in the Netherlands. The riders in Australia worked up a sweat in just a few minutes, with a prologue that returned to the race route for the first time since 2023. Back then, Alberto Bettiol was convincingly the fastest over a 5.5-kilometer course. The gaps on Tuesday would be smaller.
The first top time came within the first hour of the prologue. Watson blasted in his regular INEOS kit to a time of 4 minutes 16 seconds, averaging 50.7 kilometers per hour over 3.6 kilometers. Potential general classification riders like Finn Fisher-Black, Laurence Pithie (both Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), and Marco Brenner (Tudor) struggled to match that time.
ADVERTISEMENT
Continue reading below the video
Can outsider Zijlaard get close to Watson?
ADVERTISEMENT
In the second part of the prologue, dangerous names came to the start, but each failed to reach Watson’s time. Pierre Gautherat (Decathlon) and Mauro Schmid (Jayco AlUla) did manage to place themselves in the provisional top five, but still at a respectable distance from the fastest time. Zijlaard rode fairly late and was about four seconds slower than Watson.
In the last half hour, it was mainly a case of watching two men. Matthew Brennan, starting for Visma | Lease a Bike, blasted off like a comet but gradually lost time on Watson. We also kept an eye on Jay Vine for UAE Team Emirates as the last starter. He ultimately placed fourth, also four seconds behind Watson, who gets to call himself the first leader of the Tour Down Under.
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'.
And it’s a great time from 🇬🇧 Sam Watson, who takes the hot seat from Laurence Pithie with a time of 4:16!
Who can challenge the British road race champion today?
📺 Stream the race now on 7plus: 7plus.com.au/cycling
South Australia | @santosltd#TourDownUnder |