Classic Ewan sprint to line
CALEB Ewan’s third win in the Down Under Classic is the perfect start to his new cycling era.
The Australian sprint ace avoided a crash on the last lap that took out Italian star Elia Viviani in Adelaide.
Ewan then outsprinted three-time world champion Peter Sagan, who won last year’s event.
It is a big year for the 24year-old, who has left the Mitchelton-Scott team to be the leader at Belgian squad Lotto-Soudal.
Ewan started the year by winning two races in the Bay Crits series, but this is the first time he has ridden with a full team line-up against a top-level field.
It is a significant boost before this week’s Tour Down Under, which starts tomorrow.
“This is probably the most important one (Classic win), just to get the confidence of the team and it’s also me being confident with the team,” Ewan said.
He said the crash that took out Viviani happened behind him. It is understood the Deceucinck-Quick Step rider was not badly hurt.
Mitchelton-Scott’s Alex Edmondson finished third ahead of German Roger Kluge, who is the main leadout rider at Lotto-Soudal.
“On a course like this with the four corners every lap, it’s hard to stay together . . . but the team stayed very composed,” Ewan said.
The race started early because of broadcast commitments and the heat meant a smaller crowd. Yesterday was the start of a heatwave that will extend to the first two Tour stages.
Race organisers said stage two to Angaston on Wednesday would be shortened because of forecast 40C-plus conditions. AMANDA Spratt had no trouble defending her lead yesterday and won the Santos Women’s Tour for the third year in a row.
Commonwealth Games gold medallist Chloe Hosking won the fourth and final stage, an Adelaide street race, also for the secondstraight year.
Spratt was 25th in the bunch, well out of trouble.
The world championships silver medallist set up the win with a scorching attack on the Mengler’s Hill climb in stage two, where she won and took the overall lead.
“I’m really excited by that, actually,” Spratt said.
“I know the training I can do once I get to Europe and I know the training blocks I have coming up to put me up to that next level.
“So it’s very pleasing that I’ve carried on the form I had last year into this season.”
Already this year, Spratt has won a race at the Bay Crits and finished runnerup at the Australian road championships.
In Adelaide, she defeated teammate Lucy Kennedy by 49 seconds for the overall title and it was a flawless performance from Mitchelton-Scott.
“When I sat down with my coach Gene Bates in October and he asked me what my goals were for this year, the first thing I said was, ‘win the Tour Down Under’,” she said.