The battle of the final classification contenders of the Tour Down Under began in earnest on stage 3 from Norwood to Uraidla with a testing climb with 5.6km to go separating the highest males. Defending champion Stephen Williams (Israel-Premier Tech), nonetheless, was not amongst them.
The 28-year-old crashed within the feed zone with round 60 kilometres remaining, which did not assist his case. He sustained just some contusions however no main accidents and was capable of shortly stand up and rejoin the peloton.
However, his crash got here 10km earlier than a quick, technical descent that led into the important thing climb of Knotts Hill – a 2.6km climb averaging 8% and kicking as much as a most of 13.4% – a key level for positioning and had him on the again foot.
“It was a little bit of a shit struggle all day,” Williams stated, in keeping with his staff. “I got here down in a crash simply earlier than the climb. It was only a contact of wheels and I got here down.
“Then I attempted to recompose and are available again and I used to be alright. But I simply did not have the minerals on the climb and I fell behind. It’s not excellent however so is life and we have now three extra days to attempt to be good.”
Williams sits in twenty third place within the common classification after stage 3, shedding 20 seconds to the principle group and 35 seconds to new race chief Javier Romo (Movistar) after being paced to the road by Corbin Strong and Michael Woods.
Last yr, Williams made the distinction not solely by holding his rivals shut on the summit finishes within the finals of two phases however by snatching time bonuses, too. This yr, there’s seemingly solely Willunga Hill on stage 5 left as a serious alternative to maneuver up the standings, however Williams is not giving up but.
“Hopefully we will leap again from this and attempt to be good for the remainder of the race,” he concluded.
Get limitless entry to all of our protection of the season-opening 2025 Tour Down Under – together with breaking information, evaluation and extra, reported by our journalists on the bottom from each stage because it occurs. Find out extra.
