I abandoned my plans to go and watch stage 4 down at Willunga due to the wet (and sometimes rather wild) weather today. So that means I can’t report back in person unfortunately, but as usual there is live coverage online.

The riders are just heading for the big KOM climb, with all of the GC leaders in the peloton. Sounds like there’s a storm on the way, we’ve had some pretty strong winds here in Adelaide, hopefully they all make it safely down to the finish line.

Hans Dekkers (Agritubel) won the first sprint today with Laurent Brochard (Bouygues Telecom) second. The two then swapped positions for the second sprint. This gives Brochard a nice lead in the points classification.

UPDATE 15:03 CST – It’s pouring down here but apparently not at Willunga where they didn’t get the storm that was threatening. The top 3 were Pieter Ghyllebert (Chocolade Jacques – Topsport Vlaanderen), Sergey Lagutin (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team), Martin Elmiger (AG2r Prevoyance).

Karl Menzies was in the lead group, but Elmiger’s 2 second time bonus puts him in the Ochre jersey with a lead of 1 second! Looks like there’ll be some action tomorrow around the North Adelaide circuit.

Also the top KOM points for today’s stage went to Julian Dean (Credit Agricole).

It sounds like all sorts of things have been going on today, the commentary is rather funny so just go and read the whole lot yourself. The results are

– Both sprints were won by Viktor Rapinski (Navigators Insurance Cycling Team)

– KOM was won by Gianpaolo Cheula (Barloworld)

– The overall winner was Baden Cooke (Unibet.com)

Looks like all of the lead group were well back in the general classification so not too much should change there. If all the GC leaders are together in the peloton then Karl Menzies will hold the Ochre jersey by a margin of just 1 second from Martin Elmiger with the top 10 all within about 1 minute.

Tomorrow’s climb in Willunga could be the big deciding moment. If the wet weather keeps up I might not make it down there to watch though, since I’m not particularly keen on riding around in the rain. I’ll brave the weather for Sunday’s final stage if necessary though.

Today they’re riding from Mannum to Hahndorf, the early part is along the plains so not too much action, but as they are getting towards the hills the attacks have started. Stuart O’Grady instigated one that ended up with a group of 20 riders, but the UniSA team chased them down just before the first sprint at Tungkillo.

First through at the sprint was Laurent Brochard (Bouyges Telecom). No points for the two leaders from yesterday. There will be another sprint at Mt Torrens.

One thing about the website commentary – as they left Mannum it referred to them riding alongside a pipe that takes water from “a nearby river” to Adelaide – the Murray is referred to as “a nearby river”!

UPDATE at 13:19 CST – Brochard went for more points at Mt Torrens but was beaten by Wesley Sulzberger of SouthAustralia.com. Looks like Gene Bates will keep the green.

Around Lobethal it started raining. Shortly afterwards Samuel Dumoulin of AG2R-Prevoyance picked up the KOM points at Fox Hill creek.

remember live updates are available here

UPDATE II at 15:15 CST: The Stage is over with Steven Caethoven (Chocolade Jacques) taking the honours. Second is his team mate Pieter Ghyllebert, with Stuart O’Grady third. Apparently it was looking like just a sprint between O’Grady and Hilton Clark (Navigators), but the Chocolade Jacques team made a last minute attack. Sounds like an exciting finish, I’ll have to check out the highlights tonight. The peloton was well behind the leaders again so there’s probably only a fairly limited number of riders with a shot at the overall win already.

Tomorrow they head down to Victor Harbor from a start in Stirling, which means it’s largely downhill, though there is a pretty steep KOM climb when they take a detour between Middleton and Victor to Kerby Hill.

Today was the first stage of the Tour Down Under, which takes place in Adelaide & surrounds. Before the race proper, there was the Down Under Classic, a 50 km race which takes place right in the city, with 25 laps of a 2km course around Rymill Park. It was a hot night, about 32 degrees celcius at the start of the race. Plenty of people came down to see it, great to see lots of people getting excited about bikes. The winner was Mark Renshaw of Credit Agicole.

Today they got into the serious stuff, fortunately it’s not over 40 like yesterday, but it is still over 30 in Adelaide, and probably hotter up in the Barossa where they finished (the stage goes from Mawson Lakes to Tanunda). I’ve been following the live (text) coverage on the tour website. There was a major breakaway of 18 riders who ended up about 10 minutes ahead of the pelloton. From that group, 5 got away in Tanunda, with Karl Menzies of the UniSA team the winner.

Haven’t got the full results yet, but it seems that 19 year old Kiwi Clinton Avery made a solo attempt to chase down the lead group, for quite a while he was about half way between the lead group and the peloton, not sure where he finished though. He’ll be beaten for the white jersey by 23 year old Australian Simon Clarke who was the only young rider in the breakaway.

There were two sprints, Luke Roberts of CSC crossed first at One Tree Hill and 2nd at Williamstown, while Gene Bates from SouthAustralia.com took the top points at Williamstown after being 2nd at OTH. (do they both get a Green Jersey?)[edit: actually it’s obvious – the one who finishes first gets it, that was Bates ]
There was one King of the Mountain climb, Humbug Scrub (great name!) with Serge Pauwels (Chocolade Jacques – Topsport Vlaanderen) taking the points.

I was hoping for nightly highlights on TV, but that’s only for people with Foxtel. Channel 10 should have some coverage in Sports Tonight.

Tomorrow they’ll be starting out on the Murray at Mannum and heading through the hills to Hahndorf. I’ll have to follow the next couple of stages online, but I’m hoping to get out to see the final two stages (in Willunga and North Adelaide respectively)