Caleb Ewan and Lotto-Soudal target yellow at Tour de France

Cyclists in Sydney’s Centennial Park may not have realised they were sharing the circuit with a Tour de France stage winner recently.

Australian cyclist Caleb Ewen in Kings Cross during a recent visit to Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

Caleb Ewan laughs and admits joining those Lycra-clad middle-aged males doing laps around Sydney’s Centennial Park has been a “bit boring” for someone who vaulted into cycling superstardom this year with three stage wins at the Tour de France.

Ewan has recently slipped back into Australia after a breakout year on the bike in Europe, where he cemented his status as the fastest sprinter in the world, for a quick break, before heading back into camp late this week with his Belgian team Lotto-Soudal to plan his assault on the 2020 global cycling season.

Put simply, Ewan’s team — backed by an eclectic mix of the Belgian state lottery and an adhesives and sealants manufacturer — pay him millions to win stages on the grand tours and the one-day classics.

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Even that, he admits to The Weekend Australian, is something general sports fans can struggle to get their heads around. He is no Cadel Evans, competing to win overall grand tours, but he is an extremely valuable asset for a team geared to win sprints.

Yet this year, that meant he had peaked in the middle of the season, having claimed three Tour stages and a stage of the Giro d’Italia, along with wins at the Tours of Turkey and the United Arab Emirates by the end of July.

“Most sports if you look at it, like football, for example, it all comes to an end with the grand final every season. Our grand final is the biggest event in the world, the Tour de France,” Ewan said.

“But everyone’s grand finals are different, they aim for different things throughout the year.”

Ewan’s 2020 grand final is likely to arrive on June 27, when the first stage of the Tour de France takes place in and around Nice on the sumptuous French Riviera.

Nice is a relatively short ride from Ewan’s European home in Monaco and he says he already trains on that stage’s course. Unlike the rides he has been doing around Centennial Park and near Wollongong, it will not be boring for a professional cyclist.

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And given it is the first stage and suited to a sprinter like him, it is the ideal opportunity for Ewan to become only the sixth Australian ever to hold the prestigious yellow jersey, a chance he has to seize given the Tour overall next year seems likely to provide fewer chances for sprint finishes.

“If I look at the Tour now that is one stage I can win and try to wear that yellow jersey for a day at least,” the 25-year-old said.

“But the route (in its entirety) is not great for a sprinter next year. It is great for people watching the race, but not so much as far as sprinters go. But the sponsors of the team want to be seen at the Tour so you still have to be going there in peak condition. Opportunities are limited, so you have to take them when you can.”

Ewan admits it will be a different sort of pressure on him for next year’s Tour. He said he found the 2019 race stressful but he is no underdog any more. Yet he is also going into the second year of a lucrative two-year deal with Lotto-Soudal that likely pays him at least $1.5m annually.

A good 2020 cements his earning power, but a tough season could put that in doubt. With that in mind, he is keen to convince his team to let him also compete in the Vuelta a Espana — the third of the most prestigious tours. Only three riders in history have ever won a stage in Italy, France and then Spain in the same year. Ewan says he dreams of achieving that feat.

“It is something which is definitely on my mind and something I’ve been thinking about very recently. It is hard, because you finish the Tour and then go home (and the Vuelta starts the next month). I mentioned it to the team this year and they weren’t so keen, but I’ll keep trying.”

Ewan’s outstanding year came after a tumultuous 2018, when he left the Australian-backed Mitchelton-Scott team, owned by caravans magnate Gerry Ryan, after being denied a debut Tour in controversial circumstances when the team indicated it wanted more riders focusing on the general classification rather than stage wins.

While he plays down any questions about lingering ill-feelings, Ewan says he was surprised to make the move at the time.

“When you look at a team like Ineos, they always want a British Tour de France winner, so they backed the country’s riders. Mitchelton started like that but got caught up with winning the Tour and didn’t see an Aussie doing that.

“I thought maybe an Australian team would support Australians more. But their priorities are a bit different.”

Ewan’s immediate priority now is mapping out riding plans for 2020, which will start with January’s Tour Down Under in and around Adelaide and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Victoria, before heading to the Middle East and then Europe.

While much of cycling revolves around its European heartland, Ewan — whose grandparents moved to Australia from Korea — would like to see the sport have a greater focus on Asia. He competed at criteriums in Shanghai in November.

“It would be nice to ride in Asia more. Asia is the one place missing on the calendar but the problem is all the Asian races are at the back end of the season, and it can be hard to keep training for those.

“The big races are the ones with the real history and it is hard for a new one to be integrated and become important. No race is ever going to get the status of a Tour de France or a Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. The history in cycling is so important.”