Giacomo Nizzolo (NTT Procycling) won a sprint win on stage 5 of the Tour Down Under in Victor Harbor.

Caleb Yuan (Lotto-Soudal) won stages 2 and 4, but could only manage 8th place in the final stage. Stage 1 winner Sam Bennett (Deceuninck-Quickstep) finished third after a fast finish.

The climb up Kirby Hill, 23km from the finish, was complicated for the sprinters as the GC teams pushed the pace. Nizzolo was part of a three-man group (joined by Ewan's lead-out man Roger Kluge) that pulled away from the front of the peloton at the final corner.

"It was tough going over the climbs today," Ewan said after the stage. Luckily I had a few guys with me and they pulled the lead group back together in the last 10km." [He did a perfect lead out. He kept me out of the wind after the climb, and he was always moving me up in position.

"By the time he got to that corner I thought his job would be done, but he was so strong. He kept going all the way to the last 150 meters and no one could pass him. Eventually I made the mistake of dropping off his wheel and finding another sprinter's wheel."[9

For Bennett, who had only been with Deceuninck-QuickStep for six days, he was still in the trial-and-error stage of figuring out how to compete in a race with sprint finishes, and he and his new teammates were studying how to perfect their lead-out.

Bennett missed the decisive late split that allowed Nizzolo to beat Simone Consonni (Cofidis) for the win, but he rode to the finish with a brilliantly fast finish that closed the gap to the top two. Another 20 meters or so and Nizzolo could have had a second win.

"It would have been nice to win," he said. 'We were trying new things in the finals, so today was a good learning experience. 'I was trying something new in the finals, so it was a good learning experience today.

"I left it at the back to see if I could get more speed, but the gap that opened up at the last corner was hard to close."

"The last kilometer was fast with a tailwind. Overall, I am happy with my performance over the climb and with the team as a whole. They did a great job.

"There was another little detail in the last two corners. But it's still early days and we're all kind of meeting for the first time and getting a feel for it.

It was also a tough stage for Elia Viviani, who joined the new Cofidis team for 2020, fighting through a severe road rash in the group pile-up at the end of stage 2. Viviani posted an image of his injury on Twitter after the stage, praising the team and Conssonni's sprint for second place.