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Ewan wins final stage of the Tour Down Under

Porte claims first home tour crown

Caleb Ewan (Australia/Orica-Scott) won Sunday’s final stage of the Tour Down Under to claim his fourth triumph in six days. Richie Porte (Australia/BMC) earned his first home tour title after two stage wins, meaning that all six stages went to Australians and the race lead was held only by Australians.


The criterium circuit of Adelaide was 4.5-km and the riders had 20-laps to negotiate, with two KOM points on the 10th and 15th laps and two intermediate sprints on Laps 8 and 12. Could Caleb Ewan win his fourth stage of the 19th edition, matching Andre Greipel (2008) and Robbie McEwan (2002) for most stages claimed in a single TDU?
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It was very unlikely that anyone would stop Richie Porte from winning his first Tour Down Under. After all, his 48-second lead over Esteban Chaves was the largest ever taken into the final stage of a TDU. However, six seconds separated Chaves, Nathan Haas (Australia/Dimension Data) and Jay McCarthy (Australia/Bora-Hansgrohe).

Lotto-Soudal’s Belgian buccaneer Thomas De Gendt has been getting in breakaways all throughout the week trying to win the King of the Mountains, only to have Porte undo all this work by winning the uphill finishes. De Gendt escaped immediately with Gianluca Brambilla (Italy/Quick Step), who lit the fuse on the thrilling Formigal Raid at last year’s Vuelta a España.

But the duo couldn’t stay away until the 10th lap. The field came back together on the 8th lap where Peter Sagan helped McCarthy take the three-second bonus to pull even with Haas. Chaves took two-seconds. Haas would have to be wary of McCarthy on Lap 12 and the finale.

After the dust settled another attack flared out. Surprise! De Gendt was in it and his teammate Adam Hansen chaperoned him to the KOM lead. De Gendt carried on without Hansen but with another intrepid serial escapee Jack Bauer (New Zealand/Quick Step) and four others. Two Katusha-Alpecin riders made it an octet, whereupon one of them, Jhonatan Restrepo (Colombia), took the final intermediate sprint, vaulting himself into the top-10 and young rider’s classification lead before sitting up. Seven laps remained.

With the Orica, Trek and Astana-powered peloton closing in, Bauer went solo but returned to the pack with two laps remaining. In the final lap Sky and Bahrain-Merida came forward. But Orica had the whip hand with 3-km to go. Then Quick Step nosed its way in.

But the remarkable Ewan, Australian criterium champion, wouldn’t be denied his quartet of victories, edging out Peter Sagan. UAE-Abu Dhabi’s Slovenian Marko Kump squeezed by Dutchman Danny Van Poppel (Sky) along the left barrier to take third.

McCarthy usurped Haas’s final spot on the podium.

Michael Woods was 55th on the day, finishing in the pack.

The next WorldTour contest is its first one day race, the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Race on January 29, its first inclusion in the WorldTour.

2017 Tour Down Under Stage 6

1) Caleb Ewan (Australia/Orica-Scott) 1:55:26
2) Peter Sagan (Slovakia/Bora-Hansgrohe) s.t.
3) Marko Kump (Slovenia/UAE-Abu Dhabi) s.t.
55) Michael Woods (Canada/Cannodale-Drapac) s.t.

2017 Tour Down Under Final GC
1) Richie Porte (Australia/BMC) 18:00:21
2) Esteban Chaves (Colombia/Orica-Scott) +0:48
3) Jay McCarthy (Australia/Bora-Hansgrohe) +0:51
21) Michael Woods (Canada/Cannodale-Drapac) +1:44