Bit late to writing this, sometimes life gets in the way, but the Tour Down Under was surprisingly not awful and worth writing about.
Usually the Tour Down Under is tedious, and somewhat confusingly thats for reasons that still featured prominently this year. Typically there's four flattish stages, including a criterium in Adelaide, a hard rolling stage, and the finish up Willunga Hill. There's no time trial, and Willunga Hill is not a mountain (topographically it sort of is, but nobody would look at it and go "see that mountain over there", you get my point), so it doesn't suit tradition general classification contenders, and doesn't offer a racey enough course like you might get at the BinckBank Tour or the Tour of the Basque Country to have a great battle for the race win. It's sort of like a pre-season friendly, except it carries a huge number of World Tour points, more than moth of the previously mentioned races, as many as Paris-Nice, Tour de Suisse or winning a monument like Liege-Bastogne-Liege. So it's a race that doesn't really suit anyone in particular, at a stupidly hot time of year, as far from home for most of the teams as the World Tour goes, months before most riders intend to peak for the year, which carries a big reward.
Impey almost put together the classic Tour Down Under win, except he kept being second. In Stirling, he was second behind his teammate Caleb Ewan on the tough finishing circuit. On the downhill finish into Uraidla, he was second behind World Champion Peter Sagan. Finally up Willunga Hill, he was second behind Richie Porte with a furiously fast finish to put him level on time with last year's winner when all the bonus seconds were added up. Impey won the overall based on his lower total stage finishing position, which is about as tight as it can get.
Of all the stage races on the World Tour, this would be the only one realistically you'd point to and say "Impey could win that", so it will satisfy his team Mitchelton-Scott (who are Australian themselves) that they were rewarded for giving him the chance. Impey one of those riders who get's up climbs pretty well, and can win sprints on occasions where traditional leadouts don't work (either a hard stage, or a steep finish), it will be interesting to see what he does with the rest of his season, could easily be one of the contenders in the Amstel Gold Race, Strade Bianche maybe, Clasica San Sebastian too, those really racey hilly races rather than the huge hill at the end to decide them classics (Fleche Wallone, Liege-B-L).
I think what made this year's Tour Down Under so satisfying to watch was the variety of winners. Any race Peter Sagan shows up to with the intention of doing something rather than paying back others is naturally more exciting, and his win into Uraidla was very impressive. He hung on through some quite hard climbing before going on the attack, was then reeled in before narrowly pulling off the downhill sprint finish. The flat stages themselves were exciting for the variety that could win. While last year Caleb Ewan won everything even remotely flat, his only victory came somewhat unexpectedly high above sea level, perhaps a sign of his training to survive the Tour de France this year. Andre Greipel won both the first and last stages, and Elia Viviani who opened his account with Quick-Step Floors.
The other stories of the race were Tom-Jelte Slagter, who's won this race before but his podium place will have been a huge result for new team Dimension Data, and shows a return to form for the Dutchman, and Egan Bernal. Bernal's first race for Sky (I think he rode Tirreno-Adriatico last year so won't say first World Tour race), and he finished sixth, level on time with Ulissi in fourth. He lost just two seconds on the road to Daryl Impey, and just the 10 to Porte, which on a very hot and hard week of racing is good going. He's much better suited to proper mountains so this won't be the last we hear of Bernal this year, big big big talent.
