The 2018 Santos Tour Down Under took place between the 16th and the 21st January 2018, in and around Adelaide, South Australia.
It was the 20th Edition of the Tour Down Under and was the first professional Road Race of the 2018 Season.
As it is a UCI World Tour event, all 18 of the UCI World Tour Teams, are invited and have to enter a Team in the Race. Also invited are a Team of top Australian riders who do not have a professional contact.
Each Team fielded 7 riders, so a total of 133 riders were expected on the start line; however, a couple of riders had to pull out just before the Tour started.
Among the starters were seven previous winners, including Rohan Dennis, Simon Gerrans, and Richie Porte.
The route of the 2018 Tour Down Under, was announced in July 2017, and all 6 stages were ridden in and around Adelaide. There were 6 Mass Starts – with no Time Trial.
Due to rocketing temperatures, Stage 3 was shortened to 120.5km (from 146.5kms).
Stage 5 was the nearest to a climbers stage with 2 climbs of Willunga Hill. The Final Stage was a Criterium around the centre of Adelaide.
Daryl Impey (Michelton-Scott) became the first South African rider to win the race, with Richie Porte (BMC Racing) coming second, and Tom-Jelte Slagter (Team Dimension-Data) taking third place.
Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) won the Sprint Jersey and Nicholas Dlamini (Team Dimension-Data) won the Mountain Classification.
An interesting finisher was Egan Bernal, (Team Sky) won the Young Rider classification in his first ever start for the team – he managed to finish sixth overall.
No British Rider finished in the Top Ten of any of the stage, nor finished anywhere in the overall GC.
Hopefully, a better year next year.