'Simply too strong' - UAE in a race of their own at Tour Down Under

The new season seems to be picking up where the last one left off. UAE Team Emirates-XRG were the peloton’s dominant team in 2025, and they continued in that vein on stage 2 of the Tour Down Under, where Jay Vine and Jhonatan Narváez cruised clear of the peloton on Corkscrew Road after they were teed up by Adam Yates.

Vine took possession of the ochre jersey after claiming stage victory, and his teammate Narváez is the only rider within a minute of him on the general classification. Even with three stages still to come, the Tour Down Under looks destined to be won by UAE Team Emirates-XRG.

Mauro Schmid (Jayco-Alula) would prove the best of the rest, winning the sprint for third place in Urailda, albeit 58 seconds down on Vine and Narváez. Once the UAE tandem surged ahead on the Corkscrew, it was clear they were in a race of their own, and the chasers rode accordingly.

“It was as hard as I expected it to be,” Schmid said in a statement released by his Jayco-Alula team. “I felt quite good on the Corkscrew until the two UAE guys went. I think on the steepest part I wasted a bit too much energy because I maybe started the climb in position 70, so I already had to do quite a big effort to move back up, and then exactly at this moment they went.”

In truth, there was little Schmid or anyone else could do against UAE’s collective strength, but he rode strongly over the other side, joining the group that would fight out third place. 

By winning the sprint and collecting four bonus seconds, Schmid now lies third overall, 1:05 down on Vine. “We had quite a nice group, and in the end, I think it was nice to get a few seconds on the other guys,” Schmid said.

Schmid’s teammate Ben O’Connor came in 1:08 down to leave himself 13th overall, while Luke Plapp is now almost two minutes down in the overall standings. 

Visma | Lease a Bike will expect to be UAE’s closest rival across the WorldTour calendar, but the men in yellow and black couldn’t lay a glove on them on the road to Uraidla. Anton Schiffer was their best performer on the day, coming home in the same group as Ben O’Connor, but he was powerless when UAE turned up the volume on the Corkscrew.

“Our focus today was on starting the final climb in a good position,” Visma sports director Jesper Mørkøv said in a statement. “That went well, and we had several riders near the front. Anton Schiffer rode a good climb, but he was just a bit too far back at the decisive moment. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG block was simply too strong today.”