Orica GreenEdge's Caleb Ewen has won the Mitchelton Bay Classic race in Australia on New Year's Day.
The first race of the 2016 calendar saw Ewen take the win in a time of 59.02 ahead of Brenton Jones of Drapac, Patrick Shaw of Avanti, Luke Parker of State Of Matter and Chris Lawless of JLT Condor Mavic.
“It’s a massive relief,” said Ewan to cyclingnews.com. “I didn’t know what my form was going to be like, especially in a short race like this. I haven’t done an hour-long race since this time last year. It was nice coming here and winning again.
“It was always going to be small team today.
“It was always going to be hard. When Alex [Edmondson’s] bike broke, it turned out to be just me and Jack, which was going to make it even harder.”
“Jack was so impressive today, without him, I couldn’t have won.”
“I’ve been sprinting a lot in training, so I knew my sprint was going alright.
“I was a bit further back than I wanted to be with one lap to go, so I hit out early, but I’ve hit out from over a lap to go here before, so I knew I was capable of doing that. That’s what I did, and it worked out ok.
“It wasn’t a massive goal to come here and win anything.
“It’s more to build me up for Nationals and Tour Down Under. I’ve got so much racing on this summer that I don’t really want to peak here. Obviously I’d like to win as much as I can, but there’s not pressure for me to do what I did last year.”