The 2019 edition of the Santos Tour Down Under brought with it a plethora of changes to stage configuration, length and the day of scheduling that each town was to host the World Tour peloton. The most significant of these changes was the shifting of Queen stage, Willunga Hill, to the final day of racing on Stage Six rather than its trademark position at Stage Five, the penultimate day of racing before a procession around the streets of the Adelaide CBD.
The reasoning behind the changes stemmed from the formula of the season opening race becoming overly textbook and predictable, yet the general progression of the race despite the one-day change of the Willunga climb seemed not to stray from what the race has become accustomed to in the last six years. With this in mind, it can be pondered, did changing the day during the Tour Down Under scheduling that Willunga Hill was climbed really contribute to any significant change on how the race was to be won? Or was it simply a removal of a 20-odd lap race of the CBD that was losing its appeal in the eyes of those with power to adapt the race each year?
Moving Willunga to the final day of the race makes sense for obvious reasons: it meant that the race would have to finish on a knife edge where, really, any of the riders in the top 20 on the general classification could have taken the Ochre Jersey and won the race on the final day. Yes, the excitement was there and yes it allowed for a shake up in the final minutes of the entire race, but strategically and throughout the week preceding the first accent of the climb, teams and riders rode an almost identical race to what has been witnessed in as many years gone. Willunga is the climb that defines the overall winner of the Tour Down Under as it requires riders that are only meagre seconds apart from one another to grimace and grind their way up the climb in order to attain the minutes, seconds and morale to take out the race overall. Yet with the race taking its standard stage-by-stage winning format of sprinter, sprinter, slight-climber/all-rounder, climber and sprinter up until Willunga, the change of a day seemed only to have taken from the race a stage, while often considered ‘boring’ to those who follow or race the sport, that would draw in a crowd and almost seem to neatly wrap the Tour Down Under into a complete package of a cycling race.
With the removal of the Adelaide city circuit final stage, the race lost the procession of riders through the CBD that captures the eyes of those that may not follow cycling for the racing itself and rather for the spectacle of seeing the peloton of riders in front of their eyes- families, the elderly, South Australians looking for ‘something to do’ on a Sunday afternoon. The vibrant colours whirling by, the whizzing of wheels up the street, the ambitious breakaway that you hope stays away but are sceptical of their strength, these are the factors that enabled the CBD circuit to gain consistently large crowds throughout the entire route that typically took in views of Adelaide Oval, city parklands and the River Torrens embankment. As a flat circuit stage, the race wouldn’t begin to start churning with intent until the final five or so laps to go, typically with a spring finish at the end. Yet, it had become a stage that was engrained in the annual arrival of the Tour Down Under so much so that departing from Willunga on the Sunday, one could have been forgiven for accidentally going to the CBD on Monday expecting one more stage.
A sense of something being left unfinished mixed with the excitement and unknowingness that the day was to bring with the general classification left wide open, the change of day for Willunga appears debatable, but it cannot be argued that delivering an overall winner on the last stage of a race is as exciting for a crowd as it sounds. Just how necessary an action was it to take in making the 2019 edition of the Tour Down Under what it was?
WHEELS YOUR WAY 