Santos Tour Down Under 2025 Stage 5

January 25, 2025 Willunga Hill will be the decider in GC for this edition of the Tour Down Under. At 146KM, the race starts with an early climb up Wickham's Hill the descends into Mclaren Vale with two flat laps through Snapper Point before taking on two ascents of Willunga Hill and a finish right at the top. It was aggressive from KM0 as most teams seemed eager to get involved. A group of five got away, initiated by Oliver Bleddyn of the Australian National Team. He was joined by Michael Hepburn of Jayco AlUla, Pascal Eenkhoorn of Soudal Quickstep, Pablo Torres of UAE-XRG and Ben Swift of Ineos. Juan Pedro López of Lidl-Trek bridged up 1 KM later and the group was established with 135KM to race. Torres was relatively close on GC which disrupted the organization in the break. López got frustrated and attacked on Wickham's Hill, bringing only Torres with him. Over the top, López and Torres waited for the other four but in their tactical genius, Bleddyn, Hepburn, Eenkhoorn, and Swift came at the pair with speed and blew the two climbers away as they went passed. With 112KM to go, Torres was back in the peloton 3 minutes behind but López was fighting at 30 seconds to get back to the break. López fought for over 20KM and got within 12 seconds but couldn't make the final push. He finally pulled the plug with 91KM to go as the four Rouleurs out front extended to 4 minutes 30 seconds on the bunch. The break were fighting hard but their gap was down to 2 minutes 50 seconds with 49KM to go through the second Intermediate Sprint as Picnic-PostNL were taking charge behind. Hepburn dropped out of the break with 28KM to go but the gig was up as the peloton was just 50 seconds back with the first ascent up Willunga coming. Jayco AlUla were intent and put the race in single file up the climb and caught the last of the break. Chris Harper of Jayco AlUla attacked with his teammate Mauro Schmid countering behind. They went over the top together with 22.5KM to go with the riders behind looking around to see who will do the work. Movistar, Picnic-PostNL, and UAE-XRG got organized and started to contain the Jayco duo at 30 seconds. On the way back to Willunga, the pressure of Ineos and a little wind caused the peloton to shred into pieces. Harper and Schmid were caught with 5.5KM to go with Ineos, Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe and Movistar pushing a group of 25 away from other GC teams. The groups came together with 3KM to as the road started to pitch up. Javier Romo of Movistar didn't wait around, putting in an attack with 2.8KM to the finish. Luke Plapp of Jayco AlUla picked up the pace and pulled about 10 riders clear. Jhonatan Narváez of UAE-XRG, Oscar Onley of Picnic-PostNL, and Plapp reached Romo with 700M to go and they rode together until 200M when Narváez started his sprint. Onley followed but couldn't get around. Narváez took the win and 10 second time bonus, Onley second and a resurgent Finn Fisher-Black of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe snagged third. Plapp finished three seconds back in fourth with Romo taking fifth. Narváez takes over the GC by 9 seconds on Romo and 12 seconds to Black with just the 90KM circuit race around Adelaide to come.