Abu Dhabi // It was a day of atonement for Caleb Ewan and one of joy for UAE Team Emirates captain Rui Costa.
For Ewan, Stage 4 of the Abu Dhabi Tour provided the chance to redeem himself after his “rookie mistake” on Friday’s Stage 2, when he celebrated too early and saw Marcel Kittel of Quick-Step Floors snatch the victory in a photo finish.
Put in the same position during Sunday’s drenched final stage, the 143-kilometre Yas Island Stage which took place exclusively around the Yas Marina Circuit, there was no way the Australian Orica-Scott rider was going to make that error again.
“I think I sprinted past the line just to make sure,” Ewan jokingly said.
“It did go through my mind the whole race, to sprint the whole way past the line just to make sure there was no repeat of Stage 2.”
Watch stage 4 highlights here
Leading a three-way fight down the final stretch, Ewan successfully held off the challenge of Britain’s Team Dimension Data rider Mark Cavendish and Lotto-Soudal sprinter Andre Greipel of Germany to prevail in a time of three hours, three minutes and six seconds.
Cavendish, 31, may not have been victorious yesterday, but his second-pace finish was more than enough to comfortably win the green jersey for the general points classification.
“This Tour started on a low for me with the crash [on Stage 1] and then, on Stage 2, I came close and stuffed it up so it feels great to get the win today,” Ewan, 22, said.
“Also to repay my team for what I did on Friday.
“They did great work again today. They started super early and no one really came round at all.”
As one of the younger sprinters on the World Tour, Ewan’s early season form, which includes the sprints classification at the Tour Down Under and twice getting the better of Cavendish and Greipel in Abu Dhabi, shows he is more than capable of mixing it with the big boys.
“Like I said before the Tour, these guys are the ones that are setting the benchmark and to be able to beat them is a massive thing for me,” Ewan said.
“It just shows my progression over time and hopefully I can keep progressing in this way and beat them in some bigger races as well.
“As far as a sprinter field goes, this is probably my best win … this has given me the most confidence out of all my sprints.”
While Ewan can leave the UAE capital content, the biggest success belongs to Costa, who stayed safely in the peloton to win UAE Team Emirates their first World Tour General Classification.
The hard work had been done on Saturday’s mid-mountain Al Maryah Island Stage, so for Costa, it was just a case of negotiating his way safely around a rain-soaked track.
“The team’s focus was to protect me and they did that really well,” Costa, 30, said.
“We were actually able to arrive pretty easily in the end and so I was not very worried. I was more worried about the rain but everything arrived all right in the end.”
Costa’s victory has provided UAE Team Emirates a great start to their time on the World Tour, but as their Portuguese captain explained, the team’s president, Matar Al Dhaheri, was more delighted by the example this win will set for the UAE’s youth.
“He didn’t speak too much but he was really, really happy and I think he was focused on that my victory is really good for the family,” Costa said.
“One of the goals of the team is to raise awareness of cycling here and for kids.
“We really are pushing the morale of the kids, the victory is good for the health of the country so it’s more important than just from a sporting perspective.”
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