The World Tour season opener, the Tour Down Under, is in its final stage. What was not so expected, however, was the narrow gap between the players who held on to the top spots and the rest of the field.

The top two riders, Stephen Williams (Israel Premier Tech) and stage winner Oscar Only (dsm-Filmenig Post NL), were running exactly the same times after the crucial final stage, which ended at the top of Willunga Hill.

Honatan Narvaez (Ineos Grenadiers) is five seconds back, with stage 2 winner Isaac Del Toro (UAE Team Emirates) in fourth place. Another 13 seconds back are Julien Alaphilippe (Sourdal-Quickstep), Bart Lemmen (Vimalise-a-Bike), and Simon Yates.

The only chance to pull away and regroup before the six-stage WorldTour race is over is on Sunday's 128.2 km stage finishing at the summit of Lofty Mountain.

"It's going to be a tough stage, and it's going to be hard to control," said the team leader. The top GC contenders are all still very close. The top five or six are all within a few seconds of each other, so it's going to be a pretty stressful day, but the guys here (Israel Premier Tech) are experienced and gracious, so I'm not worried at all about giving it my all and getting away."

Williams won the jersey based on his stage position, but the 27-year-old and his team will do everything in their power to keep the jersey.

Last year, the stage, which finishes at Mount Lofty, produced a close time gap with the top 18 riders within nine seconds of each other. With an average gradient of 7.3% and a maximum gradient of 13.3%, the 1.3km summit will decide the winner.

The biggest threat to Williams is the on-going battle for time. He could gain bonus time in the intermediate bonus sprint and make a small difference, or he could add another podium finish to his Tour Down Under record, as the top three finishers in this stage will also receive time bonuses.

Intermediate sprint points will be contested at 56.1km from the start in Mylor and at 79.9km in Ulaydra, with time bonuses of 3, 2, and 1 second.

"There will be bonuses at the finish line tomorrow. I want to race for the overall win."

First place will receive a 10-second bonus, second place a 6-second bonus, and third place a 4-second bonus.

There was certainly a feeling at the start of Saturday's stage that Willunga would be the day for bigger gaps, as stage 6 was expected to be a fine-tuning stage.

There are many threats to take the top of the results table from the British riders, including former leader del Toro and Jayco Aroura, who lacked the climbing ability of Luke Plapp, who retired after a crash in stage 3. Still, the Australian team is by no means shorthanded, and Chris Harper was under pressure on Saturday before being replaced by Yates.

Yates, the 2023 Mount Lofty stage winner, is currently 13 seconds back overall, and as one of the pre-race favorites and last year's runner-up, he is one rider everyone will want to keep an eye on in their quest for the top spot currently held by Only and Williams

"They also obviously have a strong team here, so it will be hard to overturn that, but I won a stage last year. But I won a stage last year.