Itzulia Basque Country: Caleb Ewan wins stage 2

Caleb Ewan's return to top level success this season saw the Australian snap up an impressive bunch sprint victory in stage 2 of the Itzulia Basque Country.

Already victorious in the opening stage of Coppi and Bartali two weeks ago, the Ineos Grenadiers fast man easily dispatched his rivals in a chaotic bunch sprint in Lodosa.

Luca van Boven (Intermarché-Wanty) was a distant second behind Ewan, with Bastien Tronchon (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) in third.

The longest and flattest stage of the Itzulia Basque Country and the only opportunity for the sprinters in this year's race, despite a late crash the peloton sucked in the last rider from the day-long breakaway, Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel-Euskadi), clearing the way for Ewan to blast to his first WorldTour win since a stage of Tirreno-Adriatico in 2022.

"It's the only stage of the race that realistically I can win, so there was a load of pressure on me to come here and deliver, but the team did a great job," Ewan commented.

"We controlled things from the start, the boys did a great job putting me into position for the last part and then I just had to sprint."

 "We were probably short of one guy and it was quite hard coming into the roundabout over the bridge [in the last kilometre], but I got there in the last corner in third wheel, so it was good."

"If there was wind today, it'd have been a really hard stage, but fortunately there were no crosswinds, and I'm happy it was just a pretty straightforward day."

How it unfolded

Xabier Isasa (Euskatel-Euskadi), Tobias Bayer (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Diego Uriarte (Kern Pharma), Sinuhé Fernández (Burgos-Burpellet-BH) and Julen Arriola-Bengoa (Caja Rural-RGA) were the fastest out of the blocks on stage 2, attacking almost as soon as the peloton was leaving the last suburbs of start town Pamplona behind. 

At 1:11 on race leader Max Schachmann (Soudal-QuickStep), Uriarte was the best ranked overall of the quintet, and the Basque moved into the provisional lead as the five's margin rose above two minutes, but his real interest making his mark in the mountains classification, where he was already running second overall. At the sole classified climb, the Cat.3 San Martin de Unx, it came as no surprise when the Kern Pharma racer duly moved ahead to claim maximum points and the provisional top spot in that ranking.

Ineos Grenadiers, working for top sprint favourite Ewan, did the bulk of the spadework to keep things under control and deep into the warm dry afternoon on the plains of southern Euskadi, the race's status quo of the five ahead with a lead hovering at around two minutes on a largely relaxed bunch remained stable.

The quintet were still 1:45 ahead when the stage powered through the finish town of Lodosa and onto a sizable finishing loop with 60.5 kilometres to go. Soudal-Quick Step, working for Ethan Hayter, then began contributing to the chase, but the break's very cohesive collaboration made it clear the sprinters' teams had a fight on their hands.

The peloton made good use of the smooth surfaced, broad roads in the last part of the day's racing to open up the throttle even further, though, touching speeds of 60kph at times on the gently rolling terrain. Then as the break eased right from the mostly flat roads onto a steady unclassified climb, their thinning advantage crumbled even more, only for a sudden, driving lunge by Mauro Schmid (Jayco-AIUIa) in the bunch briefly to threaten to tear up the sprinters' script for the day.

The Swiss National Champion's sustained move lined out the chasers on the uphill and all but spelled curtains for the break as they crested the climb. However, the fast men's teams were almost all intact, too, and a few hundred metres further on, the bunch reformed completely, with that period of reorganisation giving the leading move a chance to regain some ground.

Even if Arriola-Bengoa was unable to handle the pace in the break, 30 seconds with 10 kilometres to go was not a bad advantage for the four remaining ahead - Fernández, Isasa, Uriarte and Bayer -   as the stage pounded alongside a very full-looking River Ebro. Bayer visibly encouraged the breakaways to continue their effort, but rather than the only WorldTour pro in the move being the last survivor, Isasa stayed out of the peloton's clutches the longest. 

Jumping away in the last five kilometres, had the road not been so straight and open, the Euskaltel racer might have stood a chance of keeping ahead. Instead, not even a crash when Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike) somehow hit a motorbike safely parked on the side of the road and went flying into the grass could stop the peloton from bringing Isasa back into their clutches.

Intermarché-Wanty were nominally in control of affairs as the peloton swept over a bridge and into the finish town, but the late crash and a series of fast corners made it hard for any single team to dominate. Ewan is a proven expert at such messy, technical finales, though and with 300 metres left to go, he delivered a trademark acceleration that brooked no response from his rivals. 

If victory on the first day of his first race of the 2025 season at Coppi and Bartali suggested the Australian's tricky last-minute transfer this January from Jayco-AIUIa to Ineos Grenadiers could not be working out better, then victory in his first WorldTour race with the British team in Itzulia Basque Country has amply confirmed it.

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