Ally Wollaston doubles up at the Tour Down Under

Stage 2 of the 2026 Women’s Tour Down Under ran from Magill to Paracombe over 130.7 km. The profile made sure it never really settled, with a ten kilometre climb straight out of Magill, rolling roads with barely any flat, and a finale built around repeated laps near Paracombe before the short rise to the line.

The opening climb sparked immediate movement, but the peloton kept it tight. Teams tested each other from the gun, with attacks coming in quick waves, but nothing really stuck. The climb stretched the bunch, it eased, and then it stretched again, before things finally settled with around 100km to go.

That was when the race found a clearer shape, as Finnish rider Wilma Aintila (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto) went solo. This time the peloton let her build a gap early, but without letting it drift into the same danger zone as stage 1, when it was almost too late. FDJ United-SUEZ kept it measured while defending Ally Wollaston’s ochre jersey, with Amber Kraak again setting the tempo on the front, this time with Lidl Trek also lending a hand.

Aintila was reeled in, but it did not bring any calm. Once the race hit the Paracombe circuit, it truly opened up. The pace lifted and the attacks started to stack on of top each other under the sweltering heat.

The most dangerous move came when Chloé Dygert (Canyon//SRAM zondacrypto), Mireia Benito (AG Insurance-Soudal), Sarah Van Dam (Team Visma | Lease a Bike), Julia Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime) and Loes Adegeest (Lidl-Trek) went clear. They opened a gap of around 15 seconds, enough to force a response, with FDJ United SUEZ moving to the front to take control of the chase.

As the peloton closed in, Dygert tried to jump again on the Paracombe climb, briefly getting clear as the move fractured under pressure. Benito and Van Dam managed to come back and tried to press on, but everything was swept up inside the final kilometre.

In the final kilometres, the leadout trains began to form. EF Education-Oatly and FDJ United-SUEZ both looked organised, with EF working for Noemi Rüegg and FDJ focused on keeping Ally Wollaston in the right place. 

On the uphill drag to the line, Rüegg opened first, but Wollaston came through with momentum from behind and had to dig deep, powering past to take a second straight stage win. Josie Nelson again timed it well to secure third from the reduced group.

After the finish, Wollaston was honest about how hard the day had felt. “It feels amazing. I was feeling really not good today, to be honest,” she said. “I actually said to the girls, I’m not feeling good. And it would have been so frustrating for them to ride with me today because I found it so hard to move up.”

But she described a mental switch in the closing kilometres once it was clear the stage would likely come down to a sprint. “In the last 10k, something really just switches mentally,” Wollaston said. “If I know it’s going to come down to a sprint, then yeah, something happens in the brain and then I was there at the front. So, I’m so so happy.”

With the stage win, Wollaston holds onto the ochre leader’s jersey going into the final day, where stage 3 offers a tougher test on paper: 126.5 km from Norwood to Campbelltown, featuring two ascents of the Corkscrew, a climb that averages 9.7%