Reigning champion Amanda Spratt set to face some stiff competition ahead of defending her crown
Aussie Amanda Spratt will once again lead the charge in the Women’s Tour Down Under – but she faces stiff competition, as Gordon Knight reports.
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Do I feel lucky?
That’s what 2020 Santos Women’s Tour Down Under race director Kimberley Conte wants contenders to ask themselves on every stage of this year’s event – the opening race on the international cycling calendar.
Every stage, every climb, every tricky descent and every winding road offers a rider who’s willing to pull the trigger a shot at wearing the ochre jersey.
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The race, which runs from January 16-19, has been elevated to the newly formed UCI ProSeries rating – one of only five UCI ProSeries stage races in the world. And with increased points, equal prizemoney and Olympic Games selection up for grabs, the elite riders will put on a great show for fans.
All four stages will be livestreamed on 7Plus, with the final stage (Schwalbe Stage 4) also being broadcast live nationally on Seven.
Sixeen teams comprising 96 riders will line up, including three-time and reigning TDU winner Amanda Spratt (Mitchelton-Scott); Commonwealth Games champion and TDU stage winner Chloe Hosking (Rally Cycling); Giro Rosa young rider winner Juliette Labous (Sunweb), from France; Tour of Spain young rider winner Pernille Mathiesen (Sunweb), from Denmark; 2018 Herald Sun Tour winner Brodie Chapman, who is out to put on a show for her new French team FDJ; and no less than 11 national champions.
“If you’re fit on the day or you’re the focus on the team strategy, an opportunity is there on each stage,” Conte said.
“The past couple years we’ve had that classic sprint stage and that classic hill stage. I needed to change that up.”
That means a fast finisher such as Hosking needs to hang tough in the Adelaide Hills, while phenomenal climbers including Colombian Diana Penuela (Team Tibco-Silicon Valley Bank) and Spratt pile on the pressure at the front of the peloton.
And that battle could hand the race to riders who can climb and sprint: the likes of teenage sensation Sarah Gigante (Tibco-SVB), Colombian champion Liliana Moreno, Cuban champion Arlenis Sierra (both Astana), or Adelaide’s own Tiffany Cromwell (Canyon-SRAM).
In past years, the battle for stage wins would come from the key contenders, but this Olympic year will see our UniSA riders, the domestic Specialized Women’s Racing squad and team Vantage New Zealand – comprising their best track endurance riders – out to impress national team selectors.
The Santos Women’s Tour Down Under gets bigger every year – and this year’s course promises a battle right up to the final city street race sprint. Here’s a look at how each stage might unfold.
Ziptrak Stage 1
Hahndorf-Macclesfield
Thursday, January 16
Start and finish: 10am-1.26pm approx
Race distance: 116.3km
TV: Livestreamed on 7plus
THIS year’s 11-day Tour Down Under Festival of Cycling kicks off in Hahndorf with a stage that heads to Echunga, Macclesfield, Meadows and Kuitpo before a Macclesfield-Meadows-Echunga loop that finishes with a sprint in Macclesfield.
“Being able to start downtown on the main street of Hahndorf is absolutely huge for us,” Conte said.
“It’s great exposure for the race.”
The first sprint for the right to wear the blue Ziptrak sprint jersey and earn a few bonus seconds comes just 8km into the race – a 100 per cent effort this early is a brutal way to start the season.
Forty kilometres later comes the category 2-rated Subaru Queen of the Mountain, up the gumtree- and pine plantation-lined Peters Creek Rd in Kuitpo, which hits a 12.2 per cent gradient.
Echunga offers a great place to watch the race, as the riders sprint for points there three times. It’s also where a strong breakaway group could launch.
“There’s little climb just out of Echunga, a rise, and if you dropped the hammer there and went, you could keep away,” Conte said.
She tips Hosking to take the stage. Yet expecting a pure sprinter to arrive at the finish with fresh legs after 1550m of climbing is a tough ask – expect the unexpected.
Novatech Stage 2
Murray Bridge-Birdwood
Friday, January 17
Start and finish: 10am-1.26pm approx
Race distance: 114.9km
TV: Livestreamed on 7plus
WOMEN’S racing returns to Murray Bridge for the first time since 2018 for Stage 2, and crosswinds on the exposed roads could turn the initial kilometres into a battle zone.
“You could get echelons forming straight away, and some riders will be left scrambling to organise and reassess what they’re doing,” Conte said. Survive the wind and you’ll be hit by a series of short climbs totalling almost 1700m – maintaining a rhythm will be a challenge.
Out of Kersbrook at about 100km into the stage, riders go up the tricky Hill Rd.
“It sort of starts and then stops and kicks left and right, so it’s quite challenging, and then they finish (the Subaru Queen of the Mountain surge) at the top, which I’ve named Christmas Tree Ridge,” Conte said.
And it’s here that the strong wind returns.
Sprinters who bank on closing the gap to the field after the 11 per cent maximum gradient ascent might be left stranded unless domestiques come to collect them.
Just 3km later comes Forreston’s Martin Hill Rd which “climbs, levels out then it kicks again”.
Conte says this stage is not for the pure sprinters, so expect to see the likes of Arlenis Sierra of Astana, Sunweb’s Georgi Pfeiffer or Trek Segafredo’s Ruth Winder to the fore.
Subaru Stage 3
Nairne-Stirling
Saturday, January 18
Start and finish: 10am-1.07pm approx
Race distance: 109.1km
TV: Livestreamed on 7plus
STAGE 3 out of Nairne could be the race decider. Packing 1678m of climbing, it heads to bushfire-scarred Lobethal before looping back to a circuit of Stirling, Heathfield, Mylor and Aldgate for the finish.
It’s also the only stage to hit dirt – a kilometre of white top along Boyle Swamp Rd and Porteous Rd before a nervous sharp right onto Cross St, in Mylor, with tyres dusted with silt.
A tip for the fans – this stage features the most bakeries of the 2020 WTDU, and they’re all well-positioned for watching the race. The Category 2 Subaru Queen of the Mountain comes at 92.4km, as the riders ascend Avenue Rd, Stirling.
There’s a moment to regroup, then it’s a long, climb up the winding Aldgate Valley Rd, which allows an attacker to quickly disappear.
“It’s out of sight out of mind,” Conte said. “Again, it’s opportunity, opportunity, opportunity.”
With just 3km to travel from there to the Stirling finish an opportunist could reap a reward. Watch out for 18-year-old Gigante or any one of the Mitchelton-Scott riders.
Schwalbe Stage 4
City centre street circuit
Sunday, January 19
Start/finish: 4.45pm-5.45pm approx
Race distance: 42.5km
TV: 7TWO
WHICH brings us to the Schwalbe Classic in the heart of Adelaide: Victoria Square, Angas St, Wakefield St, Pulteney St and Flinders St. It’s 25 laps, 42km and zero metres of climbing.
“For anyone protecting a GC (general classification) rider, that will be a very nail-biting stage,” Conte said. But it will also be a race within a race.
The top sprinters get a final chance to finish the race in the Blue Ziptrak Sprint Jersey, with sprints on laps six, 12 and 18, while the race for the ochre jersey might come down to stage time bonuses of 10, six and four seconds for the top three finishers on the day.
It’s a stage tailor-made for Hosking, but a GC contender such as Sierra will likely be right on her tail. It’s the perfect final shootout and the nearby Tour Village will be buzzing with fans.