The queen stage of the Tour Down Under has delivered its verdict. On Saturday, on the slopes of Willunga Hill, the GC favourites fought their final battle, and Rémy Rochas was unable to join it until the very end. Forced into an intense chase as the final climb approached, the climber from Groupama-FDJ had to let his rivals go less than two kilometres from the summit and had to settle for twelfth place at the finish. This is also his position overall with one stage left to go.
Tour Down Under obviously means… Willunga Hill. Since the climb’s introduction to the event around twenty years ago, but even more so since the organisation decided to make it a summit finish in 2012, the South-Australian hill has built up its reputation. That of being the decisive stage for the first WorldTour race of the year. The 2025 edition was no exception on Saturday, with a double ascent of this iconic climb in the last twenty-five kilometres. Before the final battle, a typical scenario set up with a four-man breakaway. “We expected a lot of movement at the start, that’s what happened, and we wanted to avoid a big group going without us,” said Jussi Veikkanen. “Lewis played it very well and slipped into a group of around ten riders. They were caught, then a group of six left with Pablo Torres and Juan Pedro Lopez, but they eventually both waited for the peloton.” Four men then led the way all day, with a maximum gap of four and a half minutes, but their attempt was neutralized before the first time up Willunga Hill (3.3 km at 7.4%).
“There was a misunderstanding”, Jussi Veikkanen
“The instruction was to position Rémy at the foot of the first climb with Matt, Eddy and Lewis, which was perfectly executed”, added Jussi. “The second instruction was for Rémy to stay with Narvaez as long as possible in the final”. “The plan was simply to protect me throughout the day, and as far as I was concerned, to do a strong final climb to try to win the stage and do the best possible GC”, said Rémy. The plan was executed without a hitch until the top of the first ascent of Willunga Hill, while a Mauro Schmid-Chris Harper duo tried to anticipate. On the other hand, the transition part to the final climb proved trickier for the Groupama-FDJ men. “We agreed to make Clément pull, which could allow us to position the rest of our riders in the first part of the peloton,” said Jussi. “Unfortunately, there was a misunderstanding. Clément did his job to perfection, but the others didn’t follow him, and in the final straight approaching Willunga, the peloton split apart. It’s frustrating because we had done a very good week up until then and we had done a perfect race today up until that moment. This lack of communication is such a pity.”
“It’s for sure disappointing,” Rémy Rochas
A first peloton of around twenty men broke away from the rest of the field, and Rémy Rochas was forced to make a huge effort to catch up with the leaders. “We misunderstood each other on the radio with the guys who were still there, and more importantly, the wind changed direction,” explained Rémy. “With Sven, we were refueling and wondering how to position before the climb. We were starting to come back up, but it was a little too late. Ineos really made a big push and created some echelons with the sidewind, which really surprised us and put us in trouble. Sven, Quentin and Clément tried their best to close the gaps and I made a big effort at the bottom of the climb which allowed me to come back right away. Yet, after one kilometre, due to the successive attacks, I had to drop back and take my own pace for the rest of the climb.” Among the very last ones to make it across to the first “peloton”, the French climber barely had time to get back into position when Javier Romo, the race leader, launched an offensive. “The race was on and Rémy needed to catch his breath,” explained Jussi. “He did the best he could, but he certainly wasted a real bullet with the chase. It’s frustrating and a shame because he surely had the legs for a big result.”
Unable to compete against the favourites in the last two kilometres, Rémy Rochas still fought to secure twelfth place at the top, which puts him in twelfth overall this Saturday. “Finishing twelfth is obviously disappointing, because I think I had the legs to compete for the podium or the top 5,” he claimed. “We will learn from all this, personally and as a team, and make sure that it does not happen again.” “They understood straight away that they had made a mistake and we will have to learn from it in the next races,” concluded Jussi. On Sunday, the overall ranking should not change much, but Matt Walls will have the opportunity to compete in another sprint in Adelaide.
