Jhonatan Narváez in line to defend Santos Tour Down Under title

UAE Team Emirates-XRG is pleased to announce its lineup for the first WorldTour stage race of the season, with Jhonatan Narváez returning to Australia to defend his Santos Tour Down Under title.

The Ecuadorian national champion claimed victory on Willunga Hill en route to taking the team’s first GC crown of the 2025 campaign, and the 28-year-old is raring to go ahead of his third participation in Adelaide.

Narváez: “Coming back to the Tour Down Under as defending champion is a special feeling. Last year’s win was a big moment. To start my career at UAE with that result was amazing and set the tone for the year.

“2025 was an incredible season for our whole team – we showed how strong and united we are. Now we start again from zero, with the same ambition and hunger to keep building on that success. I’m motivated, the team is in great shape, and we’re ready to race hard together for another big result here in Australia.”

With a stage victory apiece in each of his Tour Down Under outings to date, Narváez will start the race as one of the star attractions on 20 January, but the reigning champion will be joined in South Australia by two more climbing heavyweights in Jay Vine and Adam Yates. Together, the triumvirate will spearhead an imposing lineup for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, as the Emirati squad seeks to continue its impressive record at the Tour Down Under.

Between Diego Ulissi, Vine, Isaac del Toro and Narváez, the team has placed a rider on the overall podium in each of the last four editions, with Belgian sprinter Jasper Philipsen sealing UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s first stage victory on these shores in 2019.

For Vine, a former winner of this race on debut in 2023, the 2026 Tour Down Under appears to have come at the perfect time. Fresh off his best season to date in UAE Team Emirates-XRG colours, the Australian began his home summer with victory in the recent National Time Trial Championships. As he makes his way from Perth to Adelaide, Vine is looking forward to racing alongside his teammates for the first time in 2026.

Vine: “I’m really excited to be lining up with the boys for TDU. It’s honestly one of my favourite races on the calendar — racing on Aussie roads, having my family with me, and having the Aussie crowds cheering you up Corkscrew, is pretty hard to beat.

“I’ve had a much smoother lead-in than last year, so I’m feeling good and I’m really looking forward to getting stuck in with the boys and seeing what we can do together.”

Danish duo Mikkel Bjerg and Vegard Stake Laengen will be on hand in the engine room, with both riders having helped Diego Ulissi to second overall on their last Tour Down Under appearances in 2020. Making his first start in Australia since 2019, Ivo Oliveira will also return for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, whilst Sebastián Molano is in Adelaide for his first-ever start in the first WorldTour stage race of the season.

For both Yates and Molano, this year’s edition will bring a race debut, and in anticipation, former Tour de France podium finisher Yates has enjoyed considerable time in Australia over the off-season.

Piloted by Sports Director Fabrizio Guidi in the team car, UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s seven-rider lineup is well placed for another successful Tour Down Under in 2026.

By now well established as the season opener, the Tour Down Under will take place across six days from Tuesday, 20 January, through to Sunday, 25 January. This year’s route has been designed to be as tough as any that has come before it, with a prologue followed by five demanding road stages to crown the winner of this year’s ochre jersey.

Hosted in the southern city of Adelaide, temperatures for the Tour Down Under can exceed 40 degrees Celsius at this time of year, and the challenges will not end here for the peloton. Raced across 758.8km and packing in 13,187m of elevation gain, the route of the 2026 Tour Down Under looks set to pack a punch.

For the first time since 2023, the Tour Down Under will begin with a prologue to provide an order of merit ahead of the racing in earnest. Raced across just 3.6km, the action will be short but intense on Tuesday, 20 January, with the riders beginning their effort by the TDU Tour Village and ending in the nearby Victoria Park.

With a preliminary general classification sorted out in the prologue, the first holder of the ochre leader’s jersey will lead the riders out from Tanunda for stage 1. As has become tradition for the season’s curtain-raiser, the first stage of the Tour Down Under looks set to suit the fast men of the bunch. A local circuit around Tanunda will feature Menglers Hill (2.1km at 3.9%) on three occasions, but this should pose no threat to a sprint finish at the end of the 120.5km-long stage.

For fans looking to get a first glimpse of the general classification contenders doing battle, they need not look further than stage 2 between Norwood and Uraidla. Heading up Adelaide’s local proving ground, Norton Summit, right from the off, there will be no time to rest across this 148.1km-long parcours.

After passing through the finishing town of Uraidla for the first time, the race will head towards the first of two ascents up Corkscrew Road, which stands at 9.7% for 2.4km. With maximum gradients reaching above 16%, this climb is one of the toughest in South Australia.

Two years on from his Tour Down Under title, UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Jay Vine still holds the Strava KOM on Corkscrew Road. The Australian set a time of 6:14 up this ascent on stage 2 of the 2023 edition.

It will be the likes of Vine who will no doubt light up the second ascent of the climb on this occasion, with the summit falling with just 13km left to ride. The uphill and rolling journey back to Uraidla should see an exciting cat-and-mouse battle between those who have got away on the climb and those looking to limit their losses.

Following on from a day with over 3,000m of elevation gain, stage 3 looks set to be a gentler affair. There will be two tough tests in Wickham Hill and Mount Barker, but if the sprinters can get over these peaks, one final battle between the fast men should ensue in Nairne. It will not be a given, but the sprinters’ teams will be determined to secure another shot before two surefire GC days to end the race.

This year’s race will mark the 26th edition of the Tour Down Under, and it is hard to imagine Australia’s flagship stage race without its most iconic climb. Falling on the race’s penultimate stage for the third year in succession, Willunga Hill will likely come to define the Tour Down Under once again.

Stretching out for 3km at 7.5%, with maximum slopes of 11%, Willunga Hill is no easy test, and will be even harder this time out. The riders will have to climb this famed climb not once, not twice, but three times, with the finish line coming at the top of the third ascent.

It was on Willunga Hill that UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Jhonatan Narváez all but secured his maiden Tour Down Under title in 2025, and the Ecuadorian will be out to defend his Willunga kingship from a host of contenders to the throne.

Unlike last year, however, Willuga Hill will not mark the end of the GC battle in the 2026 Tour Down Under. Indeed, the final stage, beginning and ending in Stirling, may well prove even more decisive. Packing in 3,605m of climbing across a 169.8km-long route, stage 5 promises a dramatic conclusion in the Adelaide Hills.

This will be the longest final stage in the race’s history, and comes with no shortage of opportunities to pile pressure on the holder of the ochre jersey. The climb to Stirling (2km at 4%) may not sound too difficult on paper, but there will barely be a kilometre of flat roads on this up and down parcours to end the race.

Up and down throughout the course of the day, stage 5 will provide the perfect territory for an ambush, and should deliver a thrilling end to racing in South Australia. Until the eventual race winner crosses the line in Stirling, everything appears well up for grabs.