Caleb Ewan has some significant targets on his 2021 radar in his 3rd yr with the Lotto Soudal WorldTour staff. The Australian sprinter reported he needed to race all 3 Grand Excursions for the to start with time in the same season, and get a stage at every race as perfectly.
Ewan collected 7 of the 12 full victories won by the Lotto Soudal squad final time. It is a tall order for the sprinter, who measures about 15cm shorter in top than his rivals but is now identified for his large achievements on the bike.
“The Tour presents far more alternatives for sprinters this calendar year and that is an option for me. In other yrs I was not involved in that environmentally friendly battle and I only aimed for phase victories,” he explained to Web Nieuwsblad.
About racing the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the Vuelta a España, he said, “But that is a person of my targets in 2021. Just like the environmentally friendly jersey, by the way.”
To acquire a phase in each individual of the Grand Excursions in a person calendar yr was past achieved by Italian Alessandro Petacchi when racing for Fasso Bortolo in 2003, and he raked in 15 stage wins blended that calendar year at the three races.
Ewan has five Tour phase wins, adding two victories in 2020. He was first to the line on stage 3 in Sisteron, which later on Ewan explained was his favorite earn of the time, and then received stage 11 in Poitiers. He has 5 career wins at the Giro and a single phase acquire at the Vuelta, which he last raced in 2015 whilst at Orica-GreenEDGE.
“Five is fairly an achievement and I’ll go for the environmentally friendly jersey in the long term,” Ewen claimed previous drop about the Tour. In the details classification in Francd, his finest placement was 2nd in 2019, 68 points guiding winner Peter Sagan (Bora-Hansgrohe).
“My task for the group is to acquire,” he explained in Oct after a win at Scheldeprijs at the conclusion of 2020. “Anyone has their role in the team, and they’re all critical. My role is to get races, and I’m happy that I could supply this calendar year.”
Ewan is planning to depart his European foundation in Monaco in a subject of days for the Lotto Soudal teaching camp in Spain, which will be divided in a few teams – sprinters, climbers, Classics riders – for ongoing COVID-19 coronavirus protocols. Owing to UCI race cancellations similar to the pandemic, he is not in Australia this January.
Ewan has only raced two Grand Excursions in the exact same year on just one situation, 2019, coming away with multiple wins in the Giro and Tour. He is however just 26 outdated, he and his lead-out guys – Roger Kluge and Jasper De Buyst – are all below deal by 2022, and the races are back again on their common calendar positions, so considerably this 12 months.
“There was always the possibility to go to the Vuelta, but it feels like a genuinely very long 12 months, even although we haven’t actually raced that significantly,” Ewan had mentioned about 2020. “I hope that next time the cycling calendar is usual all over again.”
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