"The race wasn't quite as difficult as we would have liked" - Bernhard Eisel on Ben Zwiehoff's 14th place
Cycling
Ben Zwiehoff from the BORA - hansgrohe team was unable to finish higher than 14th place on the fifth stage of the Tour Down Under in Australia. In contrast to the previous successes of the sprint team around hat-trick winner Sam Welsford, BORA couldn't record another success.
"It wasn't what we had hoped for, the race wasn't quite as hard as we would have liked," Bernhard Eisel, SD at BORA - hansgrohe, told RSN after the race. "Unfortunately, only a few teams had ambitions to make the race really hard and so it came down to the final sprint at Willunga. And that doesn't necessarily play into the hands of Zwiehoff and Adria, both fought, but unfortunately came up a little short."
As Ben Zwiehoff is now 37 seconds behind the overall leader Stephen Williams of Israel - Premier Tech in the overall classification, he and his Spanish team-mate Roger Adrià still have opportunities on tomorrow's final day of the Tour Down Under, even if Eisel is expecting a similarly compact stage.
"The top five can still win the race and up to tenth place is still possible. If we get the chance to move forward, we want to reshape the race with Ben and Roger and maybe turn it around," explained Eisel. "The team is working perfectly, which we also showed on stages 1, 3 and 4, stage 2 was also good with Danny van Poppel in eighth place, and the Bora train with Patrick Gamper, Filip Maciejuk, Ryan Mullen, van Poppel and Welsford outshone everything. We're very happy, we've won half of the stages here, so things are going well."
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Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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🇦🇺 #TourDownUnder That’s a wrap on Willunga 👑 with @BenZwiehoff our best-placed rider in 14th place, 27 seconds down on stage winner Onley.
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