Live Coverage of Santos Tour Down Under - Stage 5

Thanks for joining us. I'll be going straight into the reports.

Valverde will get it on stage wins.

Valverde and Gerrans will be tied on GC.

Boasson Hagen gone!

Gerrans looks comfortable. Here we go.

It's coming back together!

Race will be won by Dennis or Machado,

Pate dropped.

Rohan Dennis looking really good says Roelandts.

Leaders on the climb, they are:

Rohan Dennis (Team UniSA-Australia)

Danny Pate (Sky Procycling)

José Ivan Gutierrez Palacios (Movistar Team)

Tiago Machado (RadioShack-Nissan)

Absolute suffer fest at the front.

Movistar and RadioShack swapping off, mouths open.

No Lloyd in front group. Valverde, Gerrans, Boasson Hagen, Kohler, Matthews, Bernard Sulzberger.

Gutierrez (Movistar) is going across the gap.

Haas about to get caught. We're hearing that Kohler is in a chase group around 30 seconds behind the leaders.

Peloton is now looking like smaller and smaller. Voigt, Rojas are laying it on the line.

King of the mountain classification is equal. Dennis and De Gendt both have 24 points.

De Gendt gets second place on the climb. Dennis gets third. That might just be enough for Dennis to keep the jersey.

16 points for Nathan Haas.

O'Grady dropping back to help GreenEdge.

De Gendt  wants second on the climb. He's going after Haas.

Durbridge is done for the day, he's blown up and is getting dropped.

GreenEdge on the front, O'Grady is sitting on in the break.

Von Hoff has had a puncture. That's race over today for him.

Roelandts thinks that around 40 riders will get over the first climb up Willunga together.

Peloton strung out in chase of the peloton.

JR: Hopefully I'll be back halfway through March. I have to put my health first, but that's what I hope.

JR: Yesterday I was talking to Rik Verbrugge and he said that Kohler is in really good condition. They have a lot of confidence in him. They're riding at the front for him.

JR: Just told me he was following the #cyclingnewstdu coverage from hospital. Where else would you get coverage.

JR: I think Hansen is in really good condition and he can be right up there. But my favourites for the day are Sanchez, Valverde and Gerrans.

Going to get some of Jurgen's thoughts on how his Lotto-Belisol team will be taking on the next few minutes.

Lloyd has arrived at the front of the peloton with his Lampre-ISD teammates, not going to risk the echelons costing him the race after the panic of earlier.

Gap is stopped coming down at 3:30. Peloton wise in not wanting to bring it back too quickly. That would be inviting chaos.

Spint results:

1: Thomas de Gendt

2: Stuart O'Grady

3: Andrew Fenn

Sprint once again uncontested.

Neutral support has been asked to remove themselves from the gap between the break and the main field. Gap must be really falling away.

Roelandts is wearing a neck brace after fracturing his sixth vertebrae on stage one. He came back to the hotel two nights ago. Great to see him down here with us.

Just over 50 kilometres to go. We're getting close to Old Willunga Hill.

Sky have come to the front to join BMC and Movistar.

Small group of riders are off the back. They've asked the convoy to come our of the gap between the peloton and the dropped riders.

This is the final lap now of the Port Willunga course before the riders head out to tackle Old Willunga Hill.

Riders getting spat out the back. We've still got close to 60 kilometres to go, but looks like these guys don't want to wait till Willunga.

Gap down to 4:50, second sprint prime coming up.

Musettes at the ready.

Now Liquigas and Movistar coming to the front. Lotto-Belisol only have Hansen capable of riding well on Willunga. He must be feeling really good if they're so aggressive in the drive.

They're smashing it at the front.

Gap is falling quite quickly now. They seem intent on bringing it back.

Santos confirms further 3 years of sponsorship of Tour Down Under.

Sorry to clarify with our trivia question. Only two Australians have won the stage when the race has passed over Willunga Hill - not worried about the overall!

Today's question: Since 2003 only three Australians have won when the race has passed over Willunga Hill. Allan Davis is the one but who are the other two?

Ok so today's trivia question - but before that, yesterday's winner was @ricksjordan.

Gap out to 8 minutes.

Kristof Goddaert (AG2R La Mondiale) takes first sprint points.

2. Fenn (Omega Pharma-Quickstep)

3. O'Grady (GreenEdge)

De Gendt will likely have his eyes on getting over Willunga the first time up, so he can bank the King of the Mountains points on offer. He's currently on 12 points but the 16 points on offer would be enough to seal it for him.

Current leader Rohan Dennis (UniSA) is on 16 points.

Says he's happy to support the team in his 20th year of involvement in cycling.

Brad McGee thinks it could be a Criterium International kind of day. Perhaps one for Radioshack-Nissan's Tiago Machado who's finished in the top 5 there two years in a row.

GreenEdge and Movistar also talked about laying down an infernal pace before the first time up Willunga.

Break extending still. Gap now 6:30.

Marcel Sieberg (Lotto-Belisol) going back to the team car for bidons.

It's really windy in Willunga today. Gusty 40 plus kilometre/hour cross winds.

Voigt (RadioShack) taking a nature break.

Clarke has rejoined the back of the peloton.

This is going to be a long change, Clarke is going to be right at the back of the convoy.

Peloton travelling along the Esplanade. Beautiful beachside road outside Adelaide. I'd be happy to retire here.

Peloton taking a nature break. Kohler as overall leader declares it, the others follow.

All the guys in the break are not real general classification threats. Highest placed is De Gendt who is 7:51 down on our leader Martin Kohler.

We think the AG2R rider in the break is Matteo Trentin.

No chase from the peloton. Spread across the road, obviously happy with the content of the escape.

5 riders trying to get across to De Gendt.

Peloton being strung out big time. Slight split at the front. Don't think these guys will get away though,

Riders spread across the road riding an easy tempo. I'm sure Kohler would be happy to have everyone ride this pace to the finish. He'll be put under plenty of pressure today.

The racing kicks off at 11:10 AM today. It should be an absolute cracker. Hope everyone's excited as I am.