Pure history: Jhonatan Narváez won the Tour Down Under for the first time

Jhonatan Narváez opened the 2025 season with his new team, the UAE Team Emirates at the Tour Down Underwhich ended up winning for the first time and thus started World Tour calendar.
After six years with the ineos grenadiers, The Ecuadorian signed with the UAE Team Emirates-XRG for the next two seasons. It is the UCI World Team number 1 of the ranking both of 2023 and 2024. “It feels very nice that the best team in the world presents this offer, you do not think about it too much,” He declared in an extensive interview that he offered to the official portal of his team.
Born and raised in the Playón de San Francisco, in the provincial limit between Carchi and Sucumbíos, in northern Ecuador, Narváez has been riding on a bicycle almost since he has memory. His father was an amateur and his older brother was a cyclist until he was 18. Between seeing his brother compete in Ecuador and see cyclists like the Spanish Alberto Accountant in the television images of the races transmitted from Europe, he fell in love with the sport.
At 16, he won the return of the future in Colombia ahead of his future professionals from the World Tour such as Colombians Egan Bernal and Brandon Rivera. Then multiple Pan American Youth Titles arrived and the national route.
In the interview when he arrived at his new team, the ‘lizard’ had left the following message: “If I look 10 years ago, when I was a child, I only said that my dream was to run on the World Tour, but now that I am running for the Best team in the world, I am proud of what I do.
The debut dreams with UAE
Jhonatan Narváez became champion of Tour Down Under, The first 2025 stages competition that was developed in Australia. After competing with an extraordinary level and His great moment was in the fifth stage, With a brilliant performance the cyclist left the contest almost sentenced and In the sixth stage he met to achieve the great goal.
The one born in Sucumbios shared training with Jay VineExcluson from Santos Tour Down Under; Marc Soler, three times stage winner of the Tour of Spain; and Rui Oliveira The Olympic champion on the track.
Prior to his participation, the tricolor athlete had mentioned The victory over Pagačar in the 2024 Giro of Italy: “It was the best victory of my career”. That day he arrived ahead of his now teammate, Tadej pogečar, which ended third. The couple had freed themselves from the platoon at the last climb of the day and, using their rapid end in their favor, The Ecuadorian surpassed Max Schachmann in the finish line and in the general leadership of the race.
“Being Tadej and taking the Maglia Rosa that day was really incredible for both me and my career”remember Narváez. “It was painful to be at the Tadej wheel because he attacked many times, but he knew that if he had a good time, he could have an opportunity in the finals to Sprint. It was like that in the turn, I was at the limit on the climb, I recovered on the descent and then I had the opportunity to beat him at the Sprint, so it was an incredible day. “
“It has been a long time since that victory in the turn, so now I have new goals and new goals with the team. It is exciting to come here and I have very good feelings because they have made me feel part of the family,” said the ‘lizard’ prior to your participation in Australia.
This is how The Ecuadorian becomes the first Latin American to be champion of the Tour Down Under And it is worth noting that Javier Ramírez (SEUNDO) took a difference of 9 seconds.
Historical moment for Jhonatan Narváez, who arrived at the team of his dreams, UAE Team and in his first competition he ends up enshrining as the best of the tournament.