Caleb Ewan shines in opening sprint at Tour du Var

Image 1 of 16

Caleb Ewan (Lotto Soudal) handily won the sprint on the opening stage of the Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var in La Seyne-sur-Mer, topping Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) and Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa-Samsic) to take the first leader's jersey.

Ewan had to fight to stay in the peloton over the category 3 Côte du Mai with 12.5km to go but held on and made the victory look easy.

"We knew it was going to be super hard and very touch and go whether I'd make it over the climb, but today I felt really good," Ewan said. "My team did a great job controlling the race firstly, and you saw them in the last 25k. They had me in a perfect position to start the climb and I still had five guys left over the top. I couldn't ask for a better start than that."

With Milan-San Remo a major goal for Ewan after last year's second place, taking his second win of the season with a tough climb in the finale was a confirmation that his preparation for the Classic is on track.

"I feel really good this season. I showed on the climb I'm getting stronger. I think that's just me developing as a rider. I'm really happy with the form," Ewan said.

"I knew if I wanted to go well at San Remo I'm going to have to get over something like this today. Today was actually a very good test for that."

How it unfolded

It was a beautiful day for the opening stage from Saint-Raphaël, and a rolling 177km route to the coastal town of La Seyne-sur-Mer.

Morne Van Niekerk (St-Michel-Auber 93), Evaldas Siskevicius (Go Sport-Roubaix Lille Métropole), Maël Guégan (Team U Nantes Atlantique), and Tristan Delacroix (Nice Métropole Côte d'Azur) formed the first breakaway in the first 10 kilometres, but they were never given much of a lead with the sprinters itching for a battle to win the stage. The peloton let them stretch their advantage to almost three minutes before it boomeranged back to a minute in the final 100km.

Delacroix claimed the intermediate sprint at Les Issambres after 16.6km and the breakaway stayed clear for the first two classified climbs of the day, the category three Col de la Taillude and Col de la Fourche in the second hour of racing.

Delacroix led the breakaway over the first climb, whiel Siskevicius claimed the second. By the time the breakaway got to the second sprint at Circuit du Castellet, the leaders had less than 30 seconds on the chase.

The peloton let the lead go out slightly in the technical run-in to the final climb but they were reeled in before the base of the Côte du Mai with 17km to go.

Kevin Geniets attacked near the start of the final climb and opened half a minute on the rest of the leaders but was just about caught by the crest of the Côte du Mai.

Michael Valgren (EF Education-EasyPost) tried to foil the sprinters on a rise with 1.2km to go but his attack was quickly nullified by Lotto Soudal.

Anthony Turgis (TotalEnergies) tried to get the jump on Lotto Soudal, but the Belgian team, having done the lion's share of the chasing were repaid for their work as Ewan easily won the sprint over Turgis with Nacer Bouhanni (Arkéa-Samsic) diving to third place.