Race Report: Stage 5 was billed as a power sprinters stage finish and so it proved as Peter Sagan and John Degenkolb tussled for the win. What they didnt see was the diminutive Australian Caleb Ewan shoot past to demonstrate his future capabilities. Stage for Orica, but red jersey for Giant-Alpecin as Tom Dumoulin slipped into the lead by 1 second.Todays stage was short at 167 kilometers, but had it been longer the boredom might have been too much and we would have missed a very exciting finish that brought a bright star to the fore of Grand Tour cycling. Caleb Ewan has been winning big races since he was a junior, but today was the biggest win of his life and there will be more where that came from. At the start in Rota he said: “Today is the day for me. It’s the stage I had written down and the team will work for me as much as possible. The finish is a hard one, it’s going to be a difficult sprint but I’m convinced the best sprinters will be there.”The stage starts in the fishing town of Rota and works its way up the coast towards Portugal for 20 kilometers before turning inland to Jerez de la Frontera. From there the race heads north to finish in the walled city of Alal de Guadaira after 167.3 kilometers. There are no mountains to climb, but there is one intermediate sprint in Sevilla with 25.6 kilometers to go. A...
View the full article
View the full article
