Caleb Ewan eyes wins in all 3 Grand Tours in 2021
Caleb Ewan has some massive targets on his 2021 radar in his 3rd 12 months with the Lotto Soudal WorldTour workforce. The Australian sprinter said he wanted to race all 3 Grand Tours for the very first time in the exact same season, and gain a stage at every single race as nicely.
Ewan collected seven of the 12 full victories won by the Lotto Soudal squad final season. It’s a tall get for the sprinter, who steps about 15cm shorter in top than his rivals but is now known for his large achievements on the bike.
“The Tour gives much more possibilities for sprinters this year and that is an chance for me. In other decades I was not associated in that green fight and I only aimed for phase victories,” he explained to Net Nieuwsblad.
About racing the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, he mentioned, “But that is a single of my targets in 2021. Just like the environmentally friendly jersey, by the way.”
To win a stage in each and every of the Grand Excursions in one particular calendar year was very last accomplished by Italian Alessandro Petacchi when racing for Fasso Bortolo in 2003, and he raked in 15 phase wins mixed that 12 months at the a few races.
Ewan has 5 Tour phase wins, incorporating two victories in 2020. He was very first to the line on phase 3 in Sisteron, which later Ewan claimed was his favourite get of the year, and then received stage 11 in Poitiers. He has 5 job wins at the Giro and one stage acquire at the Vuelta, which he last raced in 2015 though at Orica-GreenEDGE.
“Five is fairly an accomplishment and I’ll go for the inexperienced jersey in the future,” Ewen said last fall about the Tour. In the points classification in Francd, his most effective placement was 2nd in 2019, 68 factors powering winner Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe).
“My career for the workforce is to win,” he stated in Oct soon after a earn at Scheldeprijs at the stop of 2020. “All people has their function in the team, and they’re all crucial. My job is to acquire races, and I am happy that I could produce this 12 months.”
Ewan is preparing to go away his European base in Monaco in a make any difference of times for the Lotto Soudal coaching camp in Spain, which will be divided in three groups – sprinters, climbers, Classics riders – for continued COVID-19 coronavirus protocols. Owing to UCI race cancellations related to the pandemic, he is not in Australia this January.
Ewan has only raced two Grand Tours in the exact same calendar year on a single event, 2019, coming away with multiple wins in the Giro and Tour. He is nevertheless just 26 outdated, he and his lead-out men – Roger Kluge and Jasper De Buyst – are all less than contract through 2022, and the races are back on their classic calendar positions, so much this year.
“There was normally the chance to go to the Vuelta, but it feels like a actually lengthy year, even although we haven’t truly raced that a lot,” Ewan had said about 2020. “I hope that following time the cycling calendar is standard once more.”