Tour Down Under stage 6: Stephen Williams wins the Tour Down Under

Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech) won the Tour Down Under with a commanding victory on the final stage to Mount Lofty. Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Isaac del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) finished second and third on the stage and in the overall standings, respectively.

While Williams held the GC lead heading into the stage, he was even on time with Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL) and it was all to play for ahead of the hilly final stage of the race. Nevertheless, Williams kept his cool on the final climb, despite an attacking performance from Del Toro, and left no doubts with the stage win sealing his overall victory.

“Brilliant, what a stage,” Williams said after the stage. “I am over the moon, the support the team has given me over the last couple of days has been incredible. I can’t thank them enough.”

“That finish [was] perfect for me. It’s so punchy and I have got the knack to be able to hold and hold and hold. Luckily, I was able to get on the wheel, read the situation and capitalise. I opened up with 250 to go and everyone’s legs were dead by then.”

Down to the wire at the Tour Down Under

Stage 6 of the Santos Tour Down Under was a return to Mount Lofty for the peloton, with a 128km stage and three laps of the short but sharp climb set to decide the final overall standings of the race.

The day began in earnest straight away with the Windy Point climb (3.8km, 6%) the first test of the day, right from the word go.  With the final score left to be settled in the KoM classification. Luke Burns (Australia) needed just a handful of points to seal the classification.

Jardi van der Lee (EF Education-EasyPost) was the only rider mathematically able to overhaul Burns and gamely tried his best to shake the Australian, but Burns was on point up the entire climb. At the top, it was Chris Harper (Jayco AlUla) who managed to take the full points on offer, ahead of Burns who came across the line in second, officially winning the green KoM jersey.

Despite the climb and the numerous attempts at making a breakaway stick, none of the early moves were able to get a substantial gap for several kilometres. The short hills and twisty roads were conducive to aggressive racing as the attacks and counterattacks rolled from the front of the race. Eventually, it was Stefan de Bod (EF Education-EasyPost) and Jacopo Mosca (Lidl-Trek) who were able to carve out the first meaningful gap after 20km of racing.

The margin hovered just below the 30-second mark to the peloton until Gil Gelders (Soudal Quick-Step) jumped across the gap to join the escapees. Maurice Ballerstedt (Alpecin-Deceuninck), António Morgado (UAE Team Emirates), Simon Geschke (Cofidis) and finally Franck Bonnamour (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) all followed and bridged to the leading trio, ultimately forming the main breakaway of the day.

With Stefan de Bod the closest rider on GC, 1:30 behind the race lead of Williams, the break was quickly given a buffer of around three minutes before Israel-Premier Tech began to control the front of the race, happy to let the time bonuses for the intermediate sprint points go to the breakaway riders.

By the first intermediate sprint point with 72km left to race, the gap had leaked up to 3:30 as Ballerstedt took the maximum points from the breakaway. Behind, Israel-Premier Tech was joined by dsm-firmenich PostNL at the front of the race to begin to wind the race back together in the lead into the first of the three climbs up Mount Lofty (1.6km, 7.3%).

The breakaway’s time gap held strong over the climb for the first time, with the breakaway of seven working flawlessly together. With the break working strongly ahead, the peloton was hesitant to begin to chase in earnest as none of the major teams took up the baton. The gap only dipped under the three-minute mark with 45km left to race.

Nevertheless, on the long drag up to Mount Lofty the second time, Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) made his way to the front of the peloton and began to take huge chunks out of the gap. A mere 15km later, the gap had been reduced, almost single-handedly by the Italian powerhouse, to one minute with 30km remaining.

The breakaway was able to hold onto their gap down the climb and continued to work well together, retaining a gap of 35 seconds with 15km remaining, but the GC battle that was promised at the beginning of the day was looking imminent. Ineos Grenadiers, in particular, were en masse on the front, piloting their leader Jhonatan Narváez to the base of the final climb with the hope that he could pull back the five seconds needed to take the overall win.

The breakaway’s time ahead drew to a close with 4km to go, just in time for one final dig up Mount Lofty left to race.

Just as he did on Willunga Hill, Chris Harper launched first as the road tilted upwards. Nevertheless, the race truly blew apart when Del Toro attacked with a stinging acceleration on the steepest part of the climb

For a second, it looked as if it would be a final sprint for the victory between Del Toro and Narváez as Onley and Williams were distanced after the acceleration. Williams, however, wouldn’t be denied as he quickly accelerated past a flagging Onley and to the wheels of Del Toro and Narváez.

As the race crested the climb and began the short descent to the finish, it looked like Williams was in the driver's seat to take the overall as Onley was not going to come back. All Williams needed to do was cross the line within one place of Narváez to secure the jersey.

In the end, Williams did one better, taking the sprint for himself and locking up his first WorldTour stage race victory in the process.