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.