After two stages of battling to the finish amongst the last riders at the Tour de France, Caleb Ewan rolled over the mountaintop finish line at Col du Granon with a more comfortable margin on the time-cut after the whole Lotto Soudal team rallied around him.
It was a welcome improvement for the Australian sprinter but not enough to help him forget his previous days in the mountains, or that the biggest challenge of reaching L'Alpe d'Huez still remains.
On stage 9 Ewan reached the line in the last group of 6, on stage 10 he was the very last rider. It was understandable that before stage 11, he was not overly optimistic of his chances of making it through to the end of the Tour de France.
He told reporters “I definitely want to finish but with how I’ve felt the last few days it’s not looking good”.
Yet on Wednesday, the Lotto Soudal rider who scooped up five Tour de France stage victories across the 2019 and 2020 Tour de France, survived another day, this time finishing off the bottom of the results list and 38:59 behind winner Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), well within the day's 43:52 margin. Sprint rival Fabio Jakobsen (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) was last to finish at 40:08.
“I actually had everyone in my team wait for me, just to make sure I could make it in the time limit,” Ewan told Australian broadcaster SBS.
“I went through a few phases of my legs being really bad and then they came good and then in the end I was pretty comfortable within the time limit so that’s good. But I think tomorrow (today - ndr, to L'Alpe d'Huez) is going to be the hard one, starting uphill.”
Stage 12 heads straight into the Col du Galibier before taking on the Col de la Croix de Fer and then the final haul up the legendary hairpins of Alpe d’Huez.
It will be another day that could be make or break for the GC riders but also has potential to spell the end of the Tour de France for riders like Ewan because of the time limit – a percentage margin on the winner’s time.
Last year on the Tour it was stage 9 to Tignes that provided the biggest time-cut challenge, with seven riders outside the limit and out of the race, including Arnaud Démare (Groupama-FDJ) and Bryan Coquard (B&B Hotels p/b KTM). Ewan, however, was already long gone by then having crashed in stage 3 and broken his collarbone.
Ewan hasn’t finished a Grand Tour since the 2020 Tour de France – and has only finished two across his career – so hasn’t had as many recent in-race opportunities to condition for survival through a series of long days in the mountains.
“I just needed to get into my own rhythm,” said Ewan.
“I think when I'm following, I'm either going too hard or too easy and you never get into a really nice rhythm but then I just made my own pace and then I came pretty good in the end.”
If he can just find that rhythm for a final day in the Alps, Ewan will have a chance of making it through to try and turn his luck and scoop up a first win at this year’s Tour in the remaining sprint stages, with three more sprint finishes likely, including that final prestigious stage on the Champs-Élysées where he won in 2019.
