A 21-year-old neo-professional riding in his first Grand Tour is usually treated with kid gloves by his team, but Orica-GreenEdge directeur sportif Neil Stephens was succinct when asked if he had expected Caleb Ewan to be able to win a stage in his debut Vuelta a España.
“Yep, that’s why we brought him here,” Stephens said matter-of-factly outside the team bus shortly after Ewan had claimed victory on Wednesday afternoon. “The first stage into Malaga was always going to be a bit of a risk and that’s the way it turned out, but fortunately he was able to pull it off today.”
The sharp uphill finish in Alcalá de Guadaira was expected to be the scene of a duel between John Degenkolb (Giant-Shimano) and Peter Sagan (Tinkoff-Saxo), and that illustrious pair was duly present and correct in the finale.
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They were both out-stripped and upstaged, however, by the precocious Ewan, who tucked himself onto Degenkolb’s wheel in the finishing straight, and then swooped around him in the final 100 metres to claim the win.
Long before the Vuelta began, the stiffly rising Calle Duquesa de Talavera was to the forefront of Orica-GreenEdge’s thinking. Indeed, it was one of the principal reasons for Ewan’s presence in the nine-man roster in the first place.
“We came here with him, just for today. There are very limited sprint stages in the Vuelta, Malaga was a possibility but we knew today was more realistic,” Orica-GreenEdge directeur sportif Julian Dean told reporters afterwards. “The whole team was good. We had a well thought-out plan at the finish and it was a good effort from the boys and Caleb especially. Hopefully there’s more to come in the future.”
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