Results Tour Down Under 2026 | Ethan Vernon wins Willunga uphill sprint as UAE lose Narváez to crash

NSN Cycling Team have taken their very first win since its creation, as Ethan Vernon soared to victory in Willunga at the end of stage 4 at the Tour Down Under. It was a difficult sprint, but one in which the Briton succeeded.

The stage already began under very different circumstances when comparing to what was initially planned. The extreme heat on the ground forced the organizers to remove the Old Willunga Hill from the course, and so the stage became a day for the sprinters, finishing in Willunga with a small uphill tilt but nothing more than that.

However what was supposed to be a calm day in the peloton was not fully the case, and UAE Team Emirates - XRG felt this. Jhonatan Narváez, second in the overall classification, crashed early on and abandoned the race with a suspected concussion. Several other riders, including UAE's Vegard Stake Laengen, could not finish the stage.

The breakaway in the meantime was formed by Rémi Cavagna, Matthew Greenwood and mainly Luke Plapp of Team Jayco AlUla who tried to surprise. However, in these roads it was easy to control the breakaway, and the trio never held much of a gap, and were caught with 23 kiloemters to go. After the intermediate sprint, in which Andrea Raccagni and Mauro Schmid conquered seconds for the GC, it was all about the preparation for the final sprint.

Visma and INEOS pushed the pace but neither Matthew Brennan or Sam Welsford actually had the legs in the uphill finale. Decathlon CMA CGM had several men in front into the last sprint, Tobias Lund Andresen was well covered but also left it late, with Sam Watson launching his sprint first; however the top speed came from Ethan Vernon who took a strong victory there ahead of Andresen and Laurence Pithie.