Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) seemed ready to mark the initial sprint stage of the Tour de France 2022 when he first sailed the wheels to sweep intermediate points and then secured a privileged position in the lead until the final sprint. . However, when he reached the final bolt on the stage 2 line, he was not lowering the power, but sitting and watching his bike.
The legs were ready to respond when Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and eventual winner Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) loaded onto the Nyborg line, but the Australian’s bike was not.
“I was fighting for the wheels, looking at who had the best lead and then I turned the last corner in the last 700m, in a very good position,” Ewan said in a Twitter video of the team. “I was right behind [Peter] Sagan and Jakobsen, and then there was like a strut on the bridge and someone bumped into my derailleur and bent over. “
Still, Ewan did not give up because the driver, who is scheduled to try to get to Paris this year, knew that while victory might be out of reach, it still mattered to get the best possible final position.
“My gears were jumping and I just thought I was going to run anyway to try to get some points,” Ewan said. “I knew it would probably be too hard to win by skipping gears and then in the last hundred meters my chain went between my eleven and the box, so I couldn’t pedal anymore, so [it was] a little disappointing. “
Ewan overtook the line in 13th place, accumulating 4 points in the final sprint, adding to the 15 he achieved in the Kalundborg intermediate sprint when he led the group above the line to take third place after the rest by Sven Erik Bystrøm (Intermarché- Wanty-Gobert) and Magnus Cort (EF Education-EasyPost). This placed Ewan in ninth place in the green jersey competition, with 19 points, while van Aert leads with 60 points and Jakobsen ranks second with 59 points.
“I think to win the green jersey this year I had to be up there in every sprint I could be up there and today I wasn’t, so I think it’s all over,” Ewan said after the race. in an interview aired on SBS. “My legs felt really good, so I’m disappointed I couldn’t sprint today, but my bad luck continues, so I hope I’m lucky tomorrow.”
The last stage in Denmark offers the runner of the Lotto Soudal the opportunity to turn around the misfortune of the second stage, as well as to banish the memories of stage 3 of the 2021 edition of the race, where he crashed and broke his collarbone in the last race. The line.
The relatively flat 182 km on Sunday from Vejle to Sønberborg offers a long route on the ring road that should offer ample opportunity for teams to hook up the last attackers and then line up their speed trains or , in the case of Ewan, put the sprinters in position to navigate the wheels.
🇩🇰 # TDF2022💬 @CalebEwan reflecting on a chaotic second stage at @LeTour during massage time. Let’s go again tomorrow! 💪 pic.twitter.com/9p6u4FBQkV2 July 2022
See more