Ewan fires again in criterium

CALEB Ewan has had the start to the year he craved as the Australian cycling star tries to reignite his career.

The sprint ace dominated the criterium at the Australian road cycling championships in Ballarat on Friday.

Ewan is back at Jayco AlUla after five years at Belgian team Lotto Dstny, which started well before going sour.

He has not regained top form since crashing out of the 2021 Tour de France with a broken collarbone, and Ewan has been determined to start the year well.

It is his fourth national criterium title, following his three straight wins from 2016-18 when he was riding for Jayco AlUla’s predecessor.

“I was super-nervous before the race… I felt like a kid racing again,” Ewan said after Friday’s win.

“When you’re nervous, it means you care. I couldn’t have asked for [more].”

Jayco AlUla dominated the criterium and set up the finish perfectly for Ewan, who easily won the final sprint on Sturt Street ahead of Jensen Plowright from Alpecin Decueninck and Sam Welsford of Bora Hansgrohe.

Ewan is clearly in strong form – he even attacked the peloton at one point on Friday – and now wants an elusive win on Sunday in the blue-riband nationals road race, where he is a previous runner-up.

A crash at the bottom of the home straight on the finishing lap took out two riders, understood to be Graeme Frislie and Patrick Eddy.

Earlier on Friday evening, Ruby Roseman-Gannon won her second criterium title with a solo finish.

The 25-year-old Victorian attacked with Gina Ricardo midway through the race, and the pair built a 30-second lead on the peloton.

Ricardo ran out of steam in the last couple of laps and was swamped by the chasing pack at the finish, as Roseman-Gannon won by 14 seconds.

Roseman-Gannon’s teammate Georgia Baker won the sprint for silver, with Alex Manly third.

Roseman-Gannon was the pre-race favourite after winning the criterium title two years ago, but the expectation was that she would win a bunch sprint for the title.

Ricardo’s teammate Keely Bennett finished fifth to win the under-23 national title while earlier in the day Bendigo’s Blake Agnoletto won the men’s under-23 criterium.

– ROGER VAUGHAN/ AAP