Caleb Ewan has taken his first stage victory in the Tour de France. The son of a Korean mother and an Australian at the Limit – with a Position, which he calls “laughable and scary”.
Inches front: Caleb Ewan (centre) wins the 11. Stage in Toulouse in front of Dylan Groenewegen (R)
His rear wheel jumps wildly back and forth, seems to be on the verge of losing traction. Caleb Ewan is so bent far over his Handlebars, that the focus comes to threat far to the front. The Australian moves to the Limit when he sprints, is looking for the most aerodynamic Position on his wheel, is a crucial factor in a speed of almost 70 km/h, the Sprinter with a flat finish like the 11. The Tour de France in Toulouse reach. Wild Ewan throws his bike on the Boulevard Lascrosses back and forth, trying to make the enteilten Dutchman Dylan Groenewegen yet. With a tiger leap, both heave your bike over the finish line and the smidge of maybe five centimeters will decide this race: Caleb Ewan has the front wheel just in front and rips the Arm jubilantly in the sky.
“Yeaaaah!” cries out his joy seconds later in the target area, when he came to a stop. It is his first stage victory and his eyes shimmer a few tears of joy. “No other race I have dreamed that I would win a stage. I can’t believe it. The Tour de France route is from Australia so far, which is something we have only followed on TV. Now I’m here, I’m going to get a stage,” he says, shortly afterwards, visibly moved, in the Interview, and adds: “it is A dream come true.”
A change of team will bring the longed-for Start to the Tour
Before the Tour, he was considered by many experts as a contender for Victory on the flat stages, even as the favorite on the first Yellow Jersey in the opening round in Brussels. He was in good shape, the legs feel good, he had great confidence in himself, he gave the patient the journalists from his home country to log.
Consolation prize to kick off in Brussels: Ewan not sprinted to victory, but into the white Jersey of best young professionals
But the Tour began with disappointment for Ewan: The prelude to the victory of the underdog Mike Teunissen took, Ewan went down on the last meters the blow, he was third. This result Ewan also scored on the 4. and 10. Stage, on the 7. Part of the piece was the Second. Close doesn’t count for the sprinters but. Only the victory is considered a success. “My Team never gave up Faith in me, and I don’t,” the Australian said after the stage.
That he can do it, it has Ewan is already proven: Three stage wins at the Giro d’italia, one in the Vuelta, winning the Hamburg Cyclassics and a second place at Milan-Sanremo to decorate, among other things, his Palmarès. A Tour stage win was until today – also because of his previous Team mitchelton-Scott-nominated for the Tour de France, of which the ambitious Ewan was audibly upset. That’s why the 25-Year-old Australian racing team and hired the Belgian Lotto-Soudal, I left a Team where he replaced the ageing André Greipel. Here he received the trust and also a proper sprint train that delivers him to the stage for the finals very often in perfect position.
His Sprint Position was developed in the wind tunnel
What follows is a Ride to the razor. Ewans sprint style is extremely, also be use of the body in the fight with the other sprinters. Ewan measures just 1.65 metres, and is a good bit smaller than its competitors. But he can assert power, the Finals is pretty fearless. The biggest advantage he achieved but due to the low frontal area, which he offers to the wind. By the body size and the extremely crouched stance, he achieved on a flat road with a very high top speed – and that’s exactly why it goes in the Sprint.
Extremely bent forward Caleb sprints Ewan and reduces its air resistance
Ewan himself called it in an Interview with Global Cycling Network, once “a ridiculous Position”, in which he sprints there, after pushed, but that is not a product of chance. He and his former Team have you developed in the wind tunnel. “We have seen what a difference it makes to drive that way.” The Position falls in the category of “to make you not home”, because Ewan looks from the road in front of him, and called intimidating his position on the bike is even “fear. You need to Your torso so far forward that your face looks to the ground.”
Has learned he this Position by the way of Mark Cavendish, his role model. The Sprinter was the first so-called “Aerosprinter”. And Ewan goes a bit further than the British star Sprinter, winner of 30 Tour-stages of the race but this year is missing. This Rennfahrertyp in comparison to larger grown, endschnellen drivers, less power for the same speed and has the additional advantage that Cavendish and Ewan provide the car behind you competitors with very little wind shadow.
Next dream: the Champs-Elysées
His path to the top seems long since mapped out: Caleb Ewan has a Korean mother and an Australian father. He hails from the metropolis of Sydne, where he began early on with the Cycling. Inspired by his father who was also a professional cyclist, drove Ewan already eight years old his first race. Successfully, he was first on the track and in 2011 became Junior world champion. The following year, he was already Vice-world champion on the road in the juniors and managed to 2014 at just 19 years of unusually early jump to the pros. There, he worked with 36 career Victories in the absolute world top of the Sprinter.
Now that the Tour de France comes to the Pyrenees, is Ewan fight all the way far at the end of the race against the time limit. All with one dream in mind: A stage victory on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.
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