The way the 2025 season started was, to put it mildly, far from ideal for Caleb Ewan but then – as his long-time agent Jason Bakker put it – the ‘planets aligned’. Ineos Grenadiers didn’t have a sprinter and this sprinter didn’t have a home.
There are still plenty of questions about what happened to lead to that situation. But neither former team Jayco-AlUla – where a hopeful Ewan originally signed with for two years from the start of 2024 – nor Signature Sport director Bakker would comment on the specifics.
The outcome, however, has been that the Australian rider who all of a sudden disappeared from the Australian team's website will be stepping out in the black and red kit of Ineos Grenadiers this season instead.
“The opportunity arose for him to seek a new team and that is absolutely not an easy task at this time of year,” Bakker told Cyclingnews.
Before the new season starts, rosters have long been settled for most, with the rider transfer window officially opening on August 1.
Still even in January, when the whispers went out that Ewan might be an option, it seemed some squads could find a place for the rider who has won five stages of the Tour de France and five stages of the Giro d’Italia.
“The planets aligned because Ineos didn’t have a sprinter,” said Bakker, who has represented Australia right through his career and known Ewan since he was a teenager. “Does he want to play a role as a sprinter at Ineos? Bloody oath he does.”
The news came out from Ineos Grenadiers on Thursday that the 30 year old sprinter was on a mission to rediscover his best form, after a stall in recent seasons, and they were going to be the ones to try and help him do it.
"Caleb is a proven winner and one of the great sprinters of this generation,” John Allert, CEO of Ineos Grenadiers said in a statement. “Together we want to write an exciting new chapter for Caleb as an Ineos Grenadier, and the hard work required to achieve this starts today.”
When he said today, it appears he really meant it.
“He literally signed the contract and jumped in the car to go to Spain for the team training camp,” said Bakker.
The one-year contract that gives Ewan a chance to chase that resurgence and Ineos Grenadiers a chance to chase those big sprint wins drew a very positive response from new teammate Geraint Thomas.
The rider who has spent his entire WorldTour career with the team told Cyclingnews before stage 4 of the Tour Down Under, "It's great, obviously I know him well. He's a good guy - we need a sprinter and he's a top sprinter.”
There was a stage, however, where the possibility was open that things could have turned out very differently.
“It was over the period of late last year and Christmas that Caleb Ewan had a lot of time to reflect – to think about the way forward and if there was a way forward,” said Bakker.
“It could have been retirement but the reality is that it was not the way he wanted to finish. He has still got ambition and motivation.”
And a place in the peloton to let it unfurl.
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