2019 Women's Tour Down Under route revealed
South Australian race features three new stage-stꩵart towns







The 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:2019 Women's Tour Down Under will kick off on January 10 from the town of Hahndorf – the Germanic settlement𓄧 in the Adelaide Hills that has often featured on the route of the men's race, and was a stag⛦e finish in the women's event last year. It will kick off the race with an undulating course and expected bunch sprint at the end.
Spratt relishing harder 2018 Santos 💦Women's Tour course
168澳洲5最新开奖结果:S🌠antos Women's Tour: Edmondson wins stage 1
Santos Women's Tour: Netti⛦e Edmondson wears leader's jersey into decisive Mengler's Hill
Consecutive overall Santos Wo🅰men's Tour wins f﷽or Spratt
Santos Women's Tour secur🃏es equal prize money with Tour Down Under
But it features as a stage start 𝓡in the women's race for the first time, as do two other start towns: Nuriootpa in the Barossa Valley for the start of stage 2, and Nairne in the Adelaide Hills for the start of stage 3.
Once again, the fourဣ-day race is expected to attract the very best international and home-gr𓆉own riders.
"We're really proud of the reputation the race has developed for itself," Women's Tour Down Under race director Kimberley Conte told Cyclingnews on Saturday after the 2019 route was unveiled.
"Teams want to ꧒come back, and we've had extremely positive feedback, which we're extremely grateful for. We really try to put ✃an event on that provides what teams and riders need at that time of the year, and to showcase the talent of those athletes."
The ever-popular Adelaide Hills area south-east of Adelaide will host the start of next year's race, with a 112.9km stage from Hahndorf to Birdwood, which is expected༺ to end in a bunch sprint.
"Hahndorf's a fantastic place to start the race," Conte said. "For the first stage race of the season, we wan♑ted an undulating course, but with the prospect of a sprint finish on this opening stage.
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"It will hopefully give the riders a good stretch of the legs, and a chance for them to size each other up with a lot of riders on new teams, and with a lot of new group🐻s getting a chance to work together for the first time. It'll be a bit of a🔯 chess match.
"Even if it doesn't go to 'plan' and it's not a bunch sprint, that's the great thing about racing: the best part is 🧸what the riders end up doing with what they're given."
Barossa bound
It's on to the Barossa Valley, famous for its wines, an hour north-east of Adelaide, for stage 2: from a new stage star🃏t in Nuriootpa to Mengler Hill, near Angaston, over 116.7km, via Eden Valley to the south-east.
Mengler Hill also featured as the finish of last year's second stage, 168澳洲5🐈最新开奖结果:won by UniSA-Australia's Katrin Garfoot, and will once again reveal who the real contendersꦬ are for the overall honours.
"From Nuriootpa, we head through Seppeltsfield, with those gorgeous palm trees, although we go through there from the other direction than we did last time we were there," Conte told Cyclingnews.
"And I love the climb of Mengler Hill. We obviously dꦍid it last year, but it's really somet😼hing special."
Then it's back to the Adelaide Hills for ꦗstage 3 from Nairne to Stirling, where the riders will use part of the same finishing circuit often used by the men's e🔥vent when it finishes in Stirling, as it did last year.
Nairne𒉰, too, is a first-time stage host, but hosted an intermediate ♕sprint at last year's race.
"The is the 'queen stage'," said Conte. "We're really excited to be back in Nairne for a stage start. And there are some new roads for u💯s o❀n this stage before we join the classic Stirling men's circuit.
"But we didn't want to use a circuit that was exactly the same, and this circuit actually makes the final climb longer. We go up the climb to Stirling for a first tim📖e and then back around and along Aldgate Valley Road to climb up again once more to the finish.
"I think it's going to be a very open stage, and we could see a jersey change," Conte said. "It's not always about singling out one type of rider on a particular stage, and we saw Caleb Ewan win there in the men's race last yea🍷ꦗr, so it's up in the air as to who could win, and hopefullꦍy we'll see lots of fireworks and attacks that day."
Stage 4, using the same Adelaide East End circuit as the men's People's Choice Classic, is raced on the Sunday evening across 42.5km, and "should be nice and punchy again," said Conte of the stage 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:won last year by Chloe Hoskin❀g (Ale Cipollini).
For 2019 the men's Tour Down Under has done away with its final, 'processional' Adelaide stage 168澳洲5最新开💎奖结果:to instead fin♏ish the race on Willunga Hill, near McLaren Vale, south of the city.
As to whether the w🐼omen's evಞent may ever do the same, Conte said that anything's possible.
"We haven't yet visited Willunga Hill," she said, "but it's always in my mi💎nd to swap things up and change things around. But one of the reasons we absolutely love being in the Adelaide East End is because of that environment: there are so many people down there, and that nighttime asp🍎ect makes it really special and unique.
"But we'💙re always planning for the next year an𓆉d the next race."
Like the men's race, t🍷he Women's Tour Down Under is increasingly gaining a reputation as a must-do event ꧙for riders looking to perform back in Europe at the spring Classics, and was handed UCI 2.1 status last year.
Equal prize money was also in🍨trodu🎐ced for the first time last year, when Mitchelton-Scott's Amaಞnda Spratt took the overall victory for the second year in a row.
"We feel🍷 really honoured to have been a part of that," said Conte. "All athletes have the same amount of dedication and passion for their sport, and that doesn't matter what gender you are. That dedication and passion is the same for men's and women's teams, so to be able to honour that with equal prize money was really important to us."
2019 Women's Tour Down Under route:
Thursday, January 10, 2019, Stageಌ 1: Hahndorf to ඣBirdwood, 112.9km
Friday, January 11, 2019, Stage 2: Nuriootpa to 🌞Mengler Hill, 116.7km
Sat🍸urday, January 12, 2019, Stage 3: Nairne to Stirling, 104.5km
Sunda🎀y, January 13, 2019, Stage 4: Adelai💝de East End Circuit, 42.5km