The 2012 Santos Tour Down Under was the 14th edition of the Tour Down Under stage race. It took place from 17 to 22 January in and around Adelaide, South Australia, and was the first race of the 2012 UCI World Tour.
The race was won by Australian Simon Gerrans of the team, after taking the lead on the penultimate stage of the race and held the race leader's ochre jersey to the finish, the next day, in Adelaide. Gerrans and runner-up Alejandro Valverde – in his first race since a two-year doping ban expired at the end of 2011 – of the , both finished the race in the same total time, but due to better finishes throughout the week, and despite Valverde winning the race's queen stage at Willunga, Gerrans was awarded overall victory via a tie-break situation. 's Tiago Machado completed the podium, eight seconds down on Gerrans.
In the race's other classifications, Rohan Dennis of the UniSA-Australia team won the black jersey for the highest placed rider under the age of 26, by placing fifth overall in the general classification, and rider Edvald Boasson Hagen took home the blue jersey for amassing the highest number of points during stages at intermediate sprints and stage finishes; denying 's André Greipel, who won three stages during the week. Dennis also won the King of the Mountains classification, with finishing at the head of the teams classification.
Participating teams
As the Tour Down Under was a UCI World Tour event, all 18 UCI ProTeams were invited automatically and obligated to send a squad. Together with a selection of Australian riders forming the UniSA-Australia squad, this formed the event's 19-team peloton.
The 19 teams invited to the race were:
Schedule
The route for the race was announced on 13 June 2011.
Stages
Stage 1
17 January 2012 — Prospect to Clare,
A quartet of riders – UniSA-Australia's Rohan Dennis, rider Marcello Pavarin, Martin Kohler of and 's Eduard Vorganov – made the early breakaway from the field, and managed to extend their advantage over the main field to in excess of eleven minutes at one point during the stage, which was run in conditions of . As such, the riders between them managed to take all sub-classification points on offer during the stage, at both of the intermediate sprints and the single categorised climb at Taylers Run. Their advantage out front dwindled quickly as the peloton – led by , and – gathered pace, taking three minutes from the quartet over , leaving them with just 90 seconds of a lead out front. lost their attacking impetus at that point after Greg Henderson, one of the lead-out men for André Greipel, crashed and could not recover back to the main field.
With the field closing yet further, Dennis made a solo bid for victory from out and was clear by around a minute before eventually being caught several kilometres later, towards the run-in to Clare. After Dennis' team-mate Will Clarke had been closed down after a late counter-attack, the field set up for a bunch sprint into Clare. In the final kilometre, a crash involving numerous riders split the field, with many hitting the ground. Three riders – 's Jürgen Roelandts, 's Matteo Montaguti and rider Frédéric Guesdon – were taken to hospital, along with a spectator who was hit by a rider during the incident. Greipel was slightly delayed on the run-in but managed to bridge back to the front and managed to out-sprint Alessandro Petacchi () to the line, and achieved his ninth stage win at the Tour to take the race's first ochre jersey. Petacchi finished second, despite being reviewed by race commissaires, after Greipel complained over Petacchi's tactics in the closing stages, with Yauheni Hutarovich picking up the remaining bonus seconds on the line for , finishing third. Greipel was the first leader of the sprints classification, Dennis held the lead of the youth classification, Pavarin held the mountains jersey after leading over the only climb of the day and Vorganov was named most combative rider for the stage.
Stage 2
18 January 2012 — Lobethal to Stirling,