Caleb Ewan settled for fourth on stage one of the men’s Tour Down Under, admitting he’s been recovering from illness ahead of the WorldTour opener.
Ewan’s Jayco-Alula team were omnipresent at the front of the bunch very early to help set up the 29-year-old, who missed last week’s warm-up criterium, with the team saying he was “under the weather” after training in the heat.
The Australian was well-placed in the closing metres, sitting fourth wheel on the back of stage winner Sam Welsford’s Bora-Hansgrohe train, before losing ground.
“I was in a good position, exactly where I needed to be,” Ewan said post-race. “I didn’t really have to fight for the wheel but when I went to kick, I was already on my limit, so my sprint wasn’t very good.”
“During the week I should get better. I’ve been sick the last few days, especially with this heat, I was really struggling with my heart rate, but hopefully as the week goes on, I’ll feel a bit better.”
The Australian sprinter has returned to the squad where he turned pro, following a five-year tenure at Lotto Dstny that, whilst hugely successful, became acrimonious last year.
It was an incarnation of Lotto Dstny that backed Ewan to race at, and win, in his first Tour de France in 2019. However, differences in opinion over race program in the lead-up to last year’s La Grande Boucle suggested something internally may be off. A blast from team CEO Stéphane Heulot after Ewan abandoned stage 13 of the 2023 Tour further signaled a breakdown in communication and ultimately there was a premature end to his contract there.
Ewan is now back where he started in the WorldTour, in some ways still the same bike rider he was when he left, and in other ways not.
“Sprinters are a bit of a different breed,” Jayco-Alula sports director Mathew Hayman, told Cyclingnews at the start of stage one in Tanunda. “With any sprinter you want to get them right in the mix, or winning, both, and as long as he’s doing that…
“He’s had a couple of years that haven’t been ideal but that being said when you look at it still last year at the Tour de France, he was pretty close to winning a stage for somebody that [people] were saying ‘he’s not going very well’.”
Ewan, who finished third and then second on stages 3 and 4 of the Tour de France before withdrawing, raced again with Lotto Dstny in September and early October – with three DNF’s and a 32nd at a one-day Belgian race – before his team move…
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