Aussie Caleb Ewan turns up heat to win Stage 1 of the 2017 Tour Down Under

CALEB Ewan defied scorching heat and pressure to deliver to give his team Orica-Scott a dream start to the Santos Tour Down Under by winning Stage 1 in Lyndoch on Tuesday.

CALEB Ewan defied scorching heat and pressure to deliver to give his team Orica-Scott a dream start to the Santos Tour Down Under by winning Stage 1 in Lyndoch on Tuesday.

The 22-year-old repeated his success from the corresponding stage and town last year to claim the ochre jersey by outgunning Danny van Poppel (Sky) and Sam Bennett (Bora-Hansgrohe) in a shortened bunch sprint. For the first time in the event’s 19-year history, extreme heat prompted a mid-race decision to shorten the stage by 27km — the equivalent of one lap around Lyndoch. As the temperature on the road hit 44C, riders, directors and race director Mike Turtur made the call to prune the race from 145km to 118km. But neither the heat, the weight of expectation or anything his rivals could throw at him could stop Ewan from his second win in three days, after he also won Sunday’s People’s Choice Classic. “There was a lot of pressure coming back here, same finish as last year so I had pressure to do the same thing and win,” he said. “It’s a great start to the week, it will put the whole team on a high and hopefully we can do something like we did last year.” Orica-Scott’s sports director Matt White said Ewan was embracing the responsibility of team leadership on flat stages. “He’s the fastest guy here, especially in January,” White said. Tour Down Under - Mike Turtur’s Stage 2 preview “He handles pressure well, last year in the second part of the season the target was (Cyclassics) Hamburg and he got the race. “He likes big targets and this was his first big one for the year.” But it’s a case of leader one day, domestique the next for the gun sprinter, who will be called on to work for teammates Esteban Chaves and Simon Gerrans in Wednesday’s race-shaping hill-top stage to Paracombe. “He’ll be getting bottles,” White said. Ewan has no problem with that. “I don’t find it strange at all, I’m really happy to go into a support role. A lot of the races I expect the guys to help me and if I can return the favour I like to do that too,” Ewan said. “I’ll be happy to do that tomorrow because it’s easy to be motivated to help when you have two guys that can really go for the overall and win it.” Gerrans took two bonus seconds in intermediate sprints on the road, which improved his position on general classification ahead of Wednesday’s 148.5km Stage 2 from Stirling. White described the stifling heat as a “bit of a death march” and as the directors’ representative he welcome the use of the extreme weather protocol. “It was a good decision to shorten it by a lap, it was turning into a bit of a death march, we saw 44 degrees on the clock so it was long enough,” White said. “We get the same result if it’s one lap longer but it’s a big shock for the guys who have come from overseas so I think it was a great decision. “There’ll be more of it ... both in hot and cold conditions.” Ewan also agreed with the mid-race decision to shorten the day’s action which still took 3hrs 24mins. “It was pretty tough, we were lucky there wasn’t a big breakaway that went up the road because it would have made it a lot harder back in the peloton,” Ewan said. “After the gap came under two minutes we were just cruising along really easy and we didn’t want to bring him back too early otherwise there would have been fresh new attacks coming. “So it was probably good that they shortened it.” Ewan’s win came after a brave early breakaway by Astana’s Laurens De Vreese, who held on up front until the final 19km of the race. The Belgian rider did pocket the points for both the King of the Mountain stage and the first intermediate sprint, as well as the most competitive rider award for the stage. Aussie Jay McCarthy (Bora-Hasgrohe) took the second intermediate sprint from Katusha’s Jose Goncalves and Gerrans. Reigning champ Gerrans, had gathered valuable points in the first sprint, too, coming third behind De Vrees and Team Dimension Data’s Aussie rider Nathan Haas. Second in the King of the Mountain climb up Kersbrook Rd, Humbug Scrub, was Sander Armee (Lotto-Soudal) and Jan Bakelants (Ag2R La Mondiale) took third. MORE: All the TDU news and colour Replay our live coverage below: