Stacked UAE team, Ineos debutants feature on 2026 Tour Down Under start list
There is no place for Oscar Onley, but Jack Haig and Sam Welsford will make their first appearances for Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour Down Under, where UAE Team Emirates-XRG will start with an imposing line-up.
Defending champion Jhonatan Narváez will be joined by Adam Yates and Jay Vine in a strong UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad at the Tour Down Under, which gets under way in Adelaide on January 20.
The Tour Down Under organisation has unveiled the provisional start list for the first WorldTour race of the 2026 season, and UAE will look to pick up where they left off during their all-conquering 2025 campaign.
Jack Haig and Sam Welsford are set to make their debuts for Ineos Grenadiers at the Tour Down Under, though fellow new arrival Oscar Onley is not included in the seven-man line-up. Onley has spent a sizeable chunk of the off-season in Australia, and his old team Picnic-PostNL had pencilled him in to start 2026 at the Tour Down Under.
Matthew Brennan leads the line for Visma | Lease a Bike in Australia, and the Briton will be chasing stage victory after narrowly missing out on the opening day last year. Guillaume Martin (Groupama-FDJ United) is set to make his Tour Down Under debut, while Ben O’Connor will feature on home roads in a Jayco-AlUla team that also includes Luke Plapp and Mauro Schmid.
Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious), George Bennett (NSN), Laurence Pithie, Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and Matthew Dinham (Picnic-PostNL) also feature, while Alberto Dainese will make his Soudal-QuickStep debut at the race.
The full startlist for the men can be found via this link.
Noemi Rüegg returns to defend her title in the women’s race, which takes place from January 17-19, and the Swiss rider will be joined in the EF Education-Oatly line-up by world champion Magdeleine Vallieres.
Three-time winner Amanda Spratt will line up alongside Gaia Realini for Lidl-Trek, while Tiffany Cromwell and Chloé Dygert feature in the Canyon-SRAM Zondacrypto selection.
Mavi García will begin her second spell at UAE Team ADQ at the Tour Down Under, while Silke Smulder (Liv-Alula-Jayco), Sarah Van Dam (Visma | Lease a Bike) and fast finisher Ally Wollaston (FDJ United-Suez) are all set to start their seasons in Australia.
The full startlist for the women can be found via this link.
The women’s race will get off to a high-octane start with a course around Willunga on the opening day, while stage 3 to Athelstone will feature the stiff climb of Corkscrew Road in the finale.
The men’s race gets under way with a 3.6km prologue in Adelaide, while the rolling terrain in the opening days might produce the kind of sprint terrain that suits Matthew Brennan’s dextrous talent.
The penultimate stage to Willunga should decide the general classification, though there is scope for late drama on the final leg to Stirling.
Our full stage-by-stage guide can be found here.
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