Preview stage 5 Tour Down Under 2026 - Can Jay Vine save the race on final explosive stage?

We preview stage 5 of the Tour Down Under that is set to take place on the 25th January, having an estimated start time at 01:41CET and finishing at 05:40CET. The final day of the race will see Jay Vine begin in the race lead, but he and the thinned down UAE Team Emirates - XRG will face a challenge on the explosive Stirling circuit.

The race ends in Stirling this year with a circuit that is traditional to the Tour Down Under; however, potentially with very different dynamics this year. Usually, this circuit, featuring several rolling climbs, is a day for the sprinters and some puncheurs to be in the mix and sprinting against each other.

Now in the final day of the race, it provides more possibilities for a breakaway to succeed as many will have lost time; it provides motivation for some GC contenders to try and surprise in the hilly terrain; and it may make the fight for bonifications and the stage win more important than ever before.

The eight laps will include a 3.7-kilometer long climb at 3.8% which ends at the 4-kilometer to go mark, and then the final 2 kilometers average 3.7%. These aren't serious attack climbs, but aren't too different from a climb like the Poggio di Sanremo - so if there truly is intention to explode the race, it certainly is possible.

The riders will still be facing temperatures of 30 to 35 degrees in the afternoon, pretty brutal even though they are not as high as today's stage. With so much slight climbing, it can make a few riders crack unexpectedly, as not everyone can handle these temperatures well - specially after most have just come from the European winter.

GC fight - This can be a very tricky day. Under regular Down Under circumstances, we shouldn't really see moves until the end. But here we've got teams that want to create opportunities and this circuit is hard enough to make differences whilst not being hard enough to really exclude many from attacking hard. Jay Vine goes into the stage with over a minute of lead over Mauro Schmid and Harry Sweeny, but it's not the minute that matters, as he won't ever lose that directly. The issue may be with him cracking in the heat or UAE simply not being able to prevent a group with riders that are close on GC to get away.

Whilst Vine does have a big gap, everyone behind Schmid is separated by mere seconds. Vine has 22 riders within 2 minutes, and if the situation escalates, having some of these riders up front can be very hard to bring back, depending on which alliances UAE can form. This is ultimately the main point. Schmid and Sweeny could have their team trying to control to protect their podium if in the end of the stage that is the logic scenario, but they have no reason to be conservative from the start.

Take riders like Ben O'Connor, Luke Plapp, Javier Romo, Santiago Buitrago or Nicolas Prodhomme - every single one was a great contender for a top spot in the GC but they go into the final day not even inside the Top10, so they have reasons to take risks and to try and improve their GC or win a stage. But this applies to several other quality riders... And these are all potential GC dangers.

The likes of Guillaume Martin, Pepijn Reinderink, Per Strand Hagenes and Simone Velasco are in my opinion also men who must be taken into consideration, either over their attacking habits or their pure quality if they find themselves on a good day.

I doubt Visma will chase for a Matthew Brennan that hasn't looked to goo; NSN has Ethan Vernon on prime form but he's already won and the team is thinned down; Tobias Lund Andresen has also already won and has the points classification secured.

On the other hand, I would understand for example Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe chasing down moves as Laurence Pithie and Finn Fisher-Black are both very viable options to win the stage, and this does justify putting a man in the head of the peloton. Sam Watson, Andreas Kron, Aaron Gate, Pierre Gautherat, Andrea Raccagni and Edoardo Zambanini are also men with a fast sprint who can definitely climb this sort of terrain.

*** Edoardo Zambanini, Andrea Raccagni, Sam Watson
** Mauro Schmid, Ethan Vernon, Andreas Kron
* Harry Sweeny, Luke Plapp, Santiago Buitrago, Tobias Lund Andresen, Finn Fisher-Black, Pierre Gautherat

Pick: Edoardo Zambanini

How: Small bunch sprint.