Michelton Scott's Caleb Ewan said he was thrilled as he won the second stage of the Santos Tour Down Under and went into the leader's Ochre jersey.
Ewan took the win in a sprint in Sterling and told his team's press office: “I am very thrilled, it is probably more exciting winning on a stage that you’re a little bit unsure about going into. It was a tricky finish because I didn’t know if I would get up there or not and I didn’t want to make the call from the bottom."
"I just sat in there and tried to conserve as much energy as possible and I saw Daryl sitting up there nicely so I told him to go with about 300metres to go and then he got us out and then I had a clear run at the line.”
“I think this is probably my best Tour Down Under win because it was on a finish that didn’t suit me and probably suited Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe) more, so to get one up on him here, on this finish, is a bonus.”
“The last few Tour Down Under’s I have had the Ochre jersey but then gone straight into a mountain stage so I haven’t had the chance to hold it for more than one-day so this is great to try and keep it tomorrow.”
Ewan's team mate Darryl Impey finished second and the South African said: “I didn't know it Caleb was next to me, I just saw a white jersey so I thought it was Sagan, then finally once we got a bit closer I saw it was him and that we were in that position so it was really good.”
“It just shows how fresh we were at the end to go one, two. The team did a great job so we didn’t have to do too much all day and we could conserve quite a bit of energy.”
“It was nice to run second, it was unexpected and I think from that point everybody is certainly very happy, we couldn’t do much better than that.”
KEV MONKS FOR DIGITAL SPORTS GROUP
Source: DSG
