Caleb Ewan (Orica-GreenEdge) delivered on his favourite status in front of home crowds to win the first WorldTour stage of the season ahead of Mark Renshaw (Dimension Data) and Wouter Wippert (Cannondale). Ewan will now wear the ochre jersey for stage 2, his first stint in the leader’s jersey at WorldTour level.
With victory in Sunday’s Down Under Classic criterium, Ewan’s odds as the sprinter to beat at the Tour Down Under shortened but when the 21-year-old hit out with around 200 metres to go, there were several bike lengths back to Renshaw when he crossed the line.
"I felt really good all day and the team obviously backed me all day because they rode from the start and I’m just super happy that I could finish it off for them," Ewan said in a post-race television interview. "In the road race you have to be super conservative during the day… because the sprinters are so fast these days it’s usually down to the freshest legs and the strongest team in the end.
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"I need to thank Gerro for sharing the team with me. If he says to the team that he wants them to do the drive for him, they would have to do that. So for a guy like that who can really win the overall, to say ‘yeah you can have your go on the day there’s so many sprints’ it means a lot. It’s a really proud moment for me, I’ve never led a WorldTour race before and to lead my first one in my home country is a real honour for me."
Orica-GreenEdge missed out on winning a stage at the 2015 edition of the race and as Australia's sole WorldTour team are expected to perform in Adelaide each January. Ewan's stage win is an early pressure release before the team looks to two important stages for Simon Gerrans and his quest for a fourth win.
The early stages
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