The Cycling Disciple

Quick-Step Floors' German sprinter Marcel Kittel effortlessly powered over the line to win Stage One of the 2017 Dubai Tour to begin his defence of the title he won 12 months ago. Credit: cyclingnews.com Kittel had the full might of the famous Quickstep lead out train in his arsenal, and so easily beat Dylan Groenewegen of LottoNL-Jumbo and Dimension Data's Mark Cavendish into second and third respectively, on an entirely flat 181 kilometre course that started near the coast in the city centre, looped into the dessert, and finished on the Palm Jumeirah. Being such a flat course and with three intermediate sprints complete with time bonuses on the parcours, a breakaway was swift to head up the road from the start in Dubai city centre; Nicola Boem of Bardiani, Silvan Dillier of BMC Racing, Matteo Bono of UAE Abu Dhabi, Daniel Pearson of Aqua Blue Sport and ONE Pro Cycling's Tom Stewart were battling to get out on their own from the second the flag dropped. Boem narr...

Richie Porte cruised home on Stage Six to seize his first Tour Down Under as Caleb Ewan won his fourth stage on a technical 90km street circuit through Adelaide. Credit: adelaidenow.com.au Orica-Scott's Ewan, a starlet of the sprinting world at only 22-years-old, rounded off a truly brilliant week by coming out on top in yet another sprint battle against Bora-Hansgrohe's Peter Sagan. "I can't really believe it", exclaimed a slightly overcome Ewan, "Coming into this Tour I actually joked with my girlfriend that I would win four stages and really I can't believe I have!" Ewan continued: "With the caliber of sprinters here it was always going to be hard beating the likes of Peter Sagan. Even if he's not in his best form he's still the best rider in the world at the moment." BMC Racing's Porte becomes the third Australian to win the Tour Down Under in as many years, after Rohan Dennis (2015) and Simon Gerrans (2016), som...

Richie Porte blew away his rivals up the iconic Willunga Hill on Stage Five to all but win his first Tour Down Under. Credit: cyclingnews.com BMC Racing's Porte started his attack from a little far out on the climb he's taken three previous wins on, but the experience he'd accumulated was clearly key, as none of his overall classification rivals could get anywhere near him.  "I tell you what, that hurt more than the other three [times] I've been up here", panted an out of breath Porte, "I went from quite a long way out but I'm just happy to finish it off for the guys."  Stage Five was always going to be the stage that had the biggest say in sealing the winner of the Ochre Jersey, with the colossal three kilometre's at seven per cent of Willunga Hill needing to be summitted twice in the final 30km.  In a repeat of the previous day it took a while for a decisive breakaway to assert itself. It was the familiar faces of Lotto-S...

Caleb Ewan made it a hattrick of wins at the 2017 Tour Down Under after taking a victory on Stage Four from Norwood to Campbelltown. Credit: adelaidenow.com.au Orica-Scott's Ewan beat off competition from Bora-Hansgrohe's Peter Sagan and Team Sky's Danny van Poppel to keep his 100 per cent record in sprint finishes at the TDU, and take his tally to six wins in the opening three weeks of 2017. "I really couldn't have asked for a better start to the year", Ewan said of his impressive wins tally, "My team, again, did an amazing job. They really backed me on a circuit that could have gone either way and they were really committed to the chase and the win today." On paper Stage Four was always going to be a sprint finish, but after a hectic, nervy start, a breakaway consisting of UniSA's Cameron Meyer, Jack Bauer of Quickstep-Floors and Bahrain-Merida's Ondrej Cink were keen to aim for an upset. Cink, in his first pro-season and who wa...

Caleb Ewan put paid to Peter Sagan for the second time in three stages as he won the sprint finish of Stage Three at the Tour Down Under. Credit: cyclingtips.com Orica-Scott's Ewan showed great racing intelligence in a chaotic sprint to continue his dominance in the Red Jersey, on a stage that saw unpredictable weather conditions almost deliver a win for the breakaway. "I lost a few of my teammates in the downhill part because it got really messy", explained Ewan, "I had Luke Durbridge with me at the end and he positioned me perfectly. I was bit far out with a kilometre to go but I jumped around the wheels a bit and I got through in the end." Although not a particularly hard stage from Glenelg to Victor Harbour, with only one KOM at Sellicks's Hill, the decidedly un-Australian weather would mean the peloton would have to be on guard, with wind and potential rain the perfect ingredients for a breakaway. And said breakaway was quick to establish i...

BMC Racing's, Richie Porte, emphatically won Stage Two of the Tour Down Under to take the Ochre Jersey. Credit: cyclingnews.com Porte, who had a decidedly poor 2016 season, looked keen to show why he's still one of the best climbers in the world, and he did so, riding away from Movistar's Gorka Izagirre and Orica-Scott's Esteban Chaves in the final 1.5km of the steep climb to Paracombe. The Australian now leads the overall standings by 20 seconds to Izagirre, after whom nine seconds separates the top six; Chaves, Jay McCarthy of Bora-Hansgrohe, Dimension Data's Nathan Haas and UAE-Abu Dhabi's Diego Ulissi. Porte said: "The BMC boys were just incredible, they looked after me the whole day. It's good to win on the Paracombe and now we'll try and defend this jersey". Stage Two had been marked out as one of a couple of Queen stages of the 2017 Tour Down Under. Stirling to Paracombe was always going to be tough for all concerned, but ...

Orica-Scott's Caleb Ewan won the first stage of the 2017 Tour Down Under - which was shortened due to searing South Australia temperatures - with a strong sprint finish in Lyndoch to take the overall lead.  Credit: Cycling Weekly 22-year-old Ewan is rapidly cementing himself as arguably Australia's best sprinter and with his performance in the final kilometre, it's easy to see why. With the finish in sight, it looked as though he'd lost his lead-out man, but employed some some nifty maneuvering and soon found himself sweeping past his rivals to repeat his achievements of 2016's opening stage, and beat Team Sky's Danny van Poppel and Bora-Hansgrohe's Sam Bennett into second and third place respectively. "It was stinking hot out there", exclaimed Ewan in the immediate aftermath of Stage One, "it was a good idea for the race to be shortened."  "A lot of guys ran out of lead-out men and misjudged it", continued Ew...

The 2017 UCI WorldTour kicks off with the 19th edition of the Tour Down Under on Sunday 15 January with the People's Choice Classic, a 50 kilometre criterium event round Park 15 in the East End of Adelaide, followed by the first of six stages on Tuesday 17th. Although it doesn't have anywhere near the history or precedence of the three Grand Tours, it has seen a meteoric rise in popularity - more than doubling it's economic impact between 2008 ($17.3 million) and 2009 ($39 million) - and a five-fold media increase in the last eight years. As has now become commonplace, there will be a plethora of top talents vying to take the first race win of the new season, with some looking to make up for missed opportunities in 2016. Here is a rundown of the five favourites. 5. Geraint Thomas - Team Sky Thomas, 30, has only ridden the TDU twice before - as leader of Team Sky in 2013 and supporting Australia's Richie Porte in 2014. He took the TDU 2013 by storm, nearly ...