Last year Jack Haig finished 17th in his WorldTour debut at the Tour Down Under. Back again with the UniSA team, the talented Australian is now on track for a top 10 finish in the big race.

One year ago Jack Haig proved that he has the skills to become a WorldTour rider when he went toe to toe with the WorldTour riders in the Tour Down Under. This year he is doing even better as he finished 7th in the tough stage 3 and now sits fifth overall.

The Australian who will join Orica-GreenEDGE next year, is even hopeful that he will be able to move up. As a pure climber, he is looking forward to Saturday's queen stage which suits him a lot better.

“The hill [to Paracombe] is a bit short, a bit too much of a power climb,” Haig told Cyclingnews.

“I knew that coming into the bottom of the climb there that I had to fight as hard as possible to get into position because if I was on the back foot at the start [of the hill] I might as well have just unclipped and gone to the pub or something. You are never going to make it up there if you are towards the back on that corner. 

“I fought ultra hard into there and ended up maybe top 10, top 15 into the climb. Then I knew I had to pace myself on the bottom real steep section – if you go too hard there you will blow up and not be there at the top.”
 

“If I went with them [Porte, Evans, Dumoulin and Pozzovivo], I probably wouldn’t stay away. So I stayed with the group and followed Mick Rogers’ wheel on the climb and got stuck there in the end, in the sprint. I had too much of a bigger gear I was trying to push. The head wind and the hill made the last 70 metres seem much longer.”

UniSA is having a very successful race as they won stage 1 with Jack Bobridge who wore the leader's jersey for two stages.