Caleb Ewan didn’t get a chance to open his sprint on stage three of the Tour Down Under but the silver lining to his disappointment was that he is feeling better. Ewan has a final chance of a sprint victory in Port Elliot on Friday.
The Jayco Alula sprinter was struck by an unspecified illness in the lead-up to the WorldTour opener, skipping the prelude criterium but was determined to ride the Tour Down Under.
Ewan has been in the mix in the sprints, finishing fourth on stage one, fifth on stage two and sixth on stage three, but he is yet to secure the win he came to South Australia.
The 29-year-old lost teammate Luke Plapp to a crash within the final 12 km of Thursday’s fast run into Campbelltown, which he said made positioning trickier.
“We unfortunately lost Plappy pretty early so there were three of us left there trying to get as close to the finish as possible,” Ewan said post-stage.
“Then I was on Sam’s wheel coming into the last kilometre but all the other sprint teams were dropping their sprinters off onto his wheel, so it got super messy there on the right-hand barrier. And then when I wanted to open up, I was stuck in the middle, so it was a bit of an average sprint.
“The good thing is I felt a bit better today, but I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t actually open up my sprint.”
Ewan was the first Jayco-Alula rider to return to the team paddock, where he chatted briefly with team owner Gerry Ryan, who is in town for the squad’s ‘home' tour.
The 11-time Grand Tour stage winner has re-joined Jayco-Alula this season after an acrimonious end to an otherwise largely successful five-year tenure at Lotto Dstny. Keen to return to his prolific winning ways at the biggest races on the calendar, Ewan knows he has just one chance left to win a stage.
Stage four on Friday is flat and presents the last opportunity for sprinters, with the remaining two days featuring summit features tailored for climbers and a battle for general classification.
“I’m happy with how my legs feel now, so it is good, but obviously a lot of pressure now [with] one more sprint to go,” Ewan said.
“Hopefully we can nail it tomorrow.”
Standing in his way will surely be Welsford, who in his first WorldTour hit-out with new team Bora-Hansgrohe, has proved the fast man to beat here.
Welsford has made a formidable impression, with teammate Danny van Poppel earlier this week comparing the Australian to sprint greats Andre Greipel and Marcel Kittel.
“Last year he improved a lot,” said Ewan. “Now I’d say he’s in a better team with a better lead-out, so he’s doing really well.”
Ewan himself is adjusting to a new sprint train, working for the first time with some of the men who will follow his programme this season.
“They’re going really well,” Ewan said.
“It was a bit hard today because there were only three of us with more than 10km to go, so it’s hard to manage energy like that. They tried to get me into as good a position as possible. But when it’s such a fight for one guy’s wheel it’s always hard to hold position on your own.”
