January 24, Stage 5: McLaren Vale - Wilunga Hill 151km

Matt White says: "This is traditionally the queen stage of the Tour Down Under, even more so since they changed it to an uphill finish. It's a dangerous stage for all the climbers as a split in the final kilometre can be the difference in winning the race or not. It's the biggest day for crowds and it's a very, very important day at the office for everybody.

The way the stage is set out, it can be windy and splits occur early in the stage, but it all boils down to the two laps up Willunga. The first lap is the first natural selection where you get rid of all the non-climbers but you still get a pretty big group going into the bottom for the last time. I guess BMC are going to have a few cards to play with two guys who will climb very fast up Willunga and that's when they need to put pressure on the non-climbers. As we saw in 2014 when Cadel lost contact in that last 300 metres, it ain't over till it's over as that split really made life hard for him to win the tour."

Latest on Cyclingnews