The pre-stage favourite did not let his fans down, again demonstrating the prodigious speed that saw him claim victory in the People's Choice Classic criterium on Sunday, with a well-timed sprint.
At the start, Sean Lake of wildcard team UniSA-Australia made an immediate break, and was joined by AG2R's Alexis Gougeard and LottoNL-Jumbo's Martijn Keizer. Lake made the first bid for the King of the Mountains jersey, going early for the only summit of the day and just holding off Keizer to claim the black polka dots by a few inches.
Keizer was narrowly beaten again in the first intermediate sprint, this time by Gougeard, who also took the next sprint to pick up a total of 6 bonus seconds for his efforts, as well as the day's Most Competitive Rider award. The two losing efforts took their toll on Keizer, who was the first of the trio to drop away just over 40km from the finish.
Some 20km later, Lake was left on his own a minute clear of the peloton as Gougeard dropped back. As on Sunday, Orica-GreenEDGE were controlling the chase, easing their sprinter Ewan into position.
Towards the finish, it was WorldTour debutants Dimension Data for Qhubeka who took the initiative, with Mark Renshaw, the man usually acting as Mark Cavendish's lead out, their sprint hope. He was well-placed, but went from too far out to be able to hold off the power of Ewan, who powered past Renshaw and Sky's slightly muddled launch of Ben Swift (7th) to win convincingly by three bike lengths.
Graham Watson
Stage winner Caleb Ewan (OGE):
“I felt good all day and the team backed me right from the start. I need to thank Simon Gerrans for sharing the team with me, if he'd asked for the whole team to ride for him we'd do so. For a guy like that to tell me you can have your go I'm really grateful."
Stage results
1. Caleb Ewan (OGE) 3:24:13
2. Mark Renshaw (DDD) + :00
3. Wouter Wippert (CPT) + :00
General Classification
1. Caleb Ewan (OGE) 3:24:03
2. Mark Renshaw (DDD) + :04
3. Alexis Gougeard (ALM) + :04
4. Wouter Wippert (CPT) + :06
5. Sean Lake (UNA) + :07
6. Marko Kump (LAM) + :10
7. Adam Blythe (TNK) + :10
8. Giacomo Nizzolo (TFR) + :10
9. Ben Swift (SKY) + :10
10. Steele von Hoff (UNA) + :10
King of the Mountains Classification
1. Sean Lake (UNA) 10
2. Martijn Keizer (TLJ) 6
3. Alexis Gougeard (ALM) 4
Sprint Classification
1. Caleb Ewan (OGE) 15
2. Mark Renshaw (DDD) 14
3. Wouter Wippert (CPT) 13
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