Santos Tour Down Under 2025 Stage 2

January 22, 2025 At 129KM, Stage 2 is a circuit race that takes on the steep side of Mengler's Hill on three occasions. The 49KM circuit will be completed two full times with a reduced third lap and the finish line coming just 22KM from the summit. Fergus Browning of the Australian National Team was the first attacker of the day in search of Mountains points. He was joined by Patrick Konrad of Lidl-Trek and Georg Zimmermann of Intermarché-Wanty. Their gap was 2 minutes 30 seconds after 8KM of racing as Browning led the trio over Mengler's Hill for the first time. Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe started to ride and kept the gap around 2 minutes. At 60KM to go, Visma-Lease a Bike put a man on the front to increase the pace. The break went through the second Intermediate Sprint with 48KM to go, grabbed the points and bonus seconds, then retreated back to the peloton. Positioning started for the last climb with 32KM to go. Bahrain-Victorious led onto Mengler's Hill for the last time with 25KM to go. Ineos and Jayco AlUla each took pulls but Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek was the first make a strong attack. When López was pulled back, everyone seemed to just look around and the pace went way down. Nearly the entire peloton crossed the summit together with the exception of race leader Sam Welsford and a handful of others. Welsford got back on with 15KM to go but attacks were flying off the front. Nothing stuck however and a lull came over the bunch with 8.5KM to go as another sprint finish was looming. The final 5KM were on wide boulevards with sweeping roundabouts with plenty of room to move. Alpecin-Deceuninck led through 1KM but Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe made a rush to the front. Everyone was fighting for the wheel of Welsford but when his last leadout man Danny van Poppel pulled off, all Welsford had to do was 75M in front and there would be no beating him. When van Poppel swung off, he looked back and moved directly in front of Tobias Lund Andresen of Picnic-PostNL. Everyone on the right side near the barriers had to check up and stop pedaling. Van Poppel was relegated from 8th to 118th for dangerous riding and given the first Yellow Card of new UCI penalty system. Because the right side was blocked, the left side was clear and that is where second place Arne Marit of Intermarché-Wanty and third place Bryan Coquard of Cofidis made their run for the final podium spots.