Favorites stage 2 Tour Down Under 2024 | Right up Girmay's alley, or will Alaphilippe take the cake?

After the opening stage won by Sam Welsford, the Tour Down Under heads into the hills on day two. Starting from Norwood, we are looking at a day with 2,444 meters of elevation gain, spread out over 142 kilometers. IDLProCycling.com brings you up to speed.

Course stage 2 Tour Down Under 2024

The start in Norwood could prove to be very interesting: right from the beginning, the course goes uphill, thanks to the Ashton climb. This ten-kilometer climb with an average gradient of four percent is more of a steady rise, but early in the season, it can create quite some chaos, for example with a strong breakaway group. After a sprint in Woodside, the route heads towards Lobethal, the finish location of the day.

We reach this via Fox Creek, the critical climb of the day. This calf-biter, 1.6 kilometers long with an average gradient of 8 percent, must be conquered three times in a local circuit that the riders have to complete as many times, with the last summit within the final ten kilometers. That will be right up the alley of the guys who have strong legs - and courage!

Fox Creek is not the only obstacle that the riders encounter in that local 35-kilometer circuit. Right after the summit of the decisive climb, the course goes up steeply once again through a short descent, with several hundred meters of false flat. From there, the track descends slightly as we head towards the final one and a half kilometers, which are flat. The peloton has finished in Lobethal once before (with André Greipel emerging as the winner in 2013), but that time they did not go over Fox Creek. So, an interesting new discovery!

Climbs
10.0 km: Ashton (10 km at 4%)
63.5 km: Fox Creek (1.6 km at 8%)
98.5 km: Fox Creek (1.6 km at 8%)

Times
Start: 11:10 AM locally (01:40 AM Dutch time)
Finish: 2:52 PM locally (05:22 AM Dutch time)

Weather stage 2 Tour Down Under 2024

There should be no complaints from the participants of the Tour Down Under in terms of the weather. On Wednesday, temperatures will once again rise to well above 20 degrees Celsius, with a light breeze.

Favorites stage 2 Tour Down Under 2024

Well, it could go either way. Normally, we would say that a stage like this is too hard for the sprinters and too easy for the general classification riders, but what are these rules of thumb worth in mid-March? Probably not much. However, in the weeks leading up to the Tour Down Under, we have been able to pick up on some things, such as the form of Jonathan Narváez from INEOS Grenadiers. He won the introductory criterium, picked up bonuses on Tuesday, and also finished fifth in the final sprint.

Fox Creek is a hill that the better climbing sprinters should be able to handle, which leads us to start looking for potential winners among the guys who have already shown something in the (Flemish) Ardennes. Biniam Girmay, as a former winner of Gent-Wevelgem for Intermarché-Wanty, certainly fits the bill, as does GP Quebec podium finisher Corbin Strong. And what about super sprint lead-out Danny van Poppel, who also enjoys this kind of stage?

If the climbers or punchers get involved, we mainly look towards Jayco AlUla with Luke Plapp and Simon Yates, and UAE-Team Emirates with (among others) Finn Fisher-Black, Diego Ulissi, Alessandro Covi and Isaac del Toro. But we should definitely also consider riders such as Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step), Milan Vader (Visma | Lease a Bike), Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar) and Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL), each one of them a spirited racer.

Maybe we'll even see a group break away on the first climb of the day. In that case, Lidl-Trek with the likes of Bauke Mollema, Mathias Vacek, Natnael Tesfatsion or Quinn Simmons could try to pull something off, as well as riders like Derek Gee (Israel-Premier Tech), Filippo Ganna (INEOS Grenadiers), Franck Bonnamour (AG2R Citroën) and Harry Sweeny (EF Education-EasyPost). Although this is quite speculative...

Favorites stage 2 Tour Down Under 2024, according to IDLProCycling.com

Top favorites: Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS Grenadiers) and Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty)
Outsiders: Corbin Strong (Israel-Premier Tech), Danny van Poppel (BORA-hansgrohe), Luke Plapp (Jayco AlUla) and Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal Quick-Step) 
Long shots: Simon Yates (Jayco AlUla), Milan Vader (Visma | Lease a Bike), Alessandro Covi, Isaac del Toro (UAE-Team Emirates), Natnael Tesfatsion, Quinn Simmons (Lidl-Trek), Ruben Guerreiro (Movistar) and Oscar Onley (dsm-firmenich PostNL)