9-time Santos Tour Down Beneath stage winner Caleb Ewan might be on the beginning line at his house nation’s signature stage race in January, however not flashing the colors of his Lotto-Dstny commerce crew. Ewan, together with teammate Jarrad Drizners, will as an alternative compete within the six-day WorldTour race with the Australian nationwide crew.
The Lotto-Dstny duo will compete alongside teammate Harry Sweeny at the beginning of the brand new 12 months within the AusCycling Street Nationwide Championships, held in Ballarat from January 6-10. Nevertheless, solely Ewan and Drizners will stay to compete within the Tour Down Beneath from January 17-22 and the 176km Cadel Evans Nice Ocean Street Race on January 29, with the nationwide crew, in accordance with a report by Het Laatste Nieuws (opens in new tab).
Particulars of these within the nationwide crew – which typically gives locations for a mix {of professional} riders with squads that are not racing in Australia and promising home riders – are but to be confirmed by AusCycling.
Earlier this week, the UCI confirmed Lotto-Dstny, previously Lotto Soudal, had been relegated from the WorldTour and obtained a ProTeam licence for the 2023 season. Lotto-Dstny, together with Israel-Premier Tech, failed to attain sufficient rating factors to complete within the prime 18 groups within the three-year rating used to resolve the sporting standards for the 2023 WorldTour.
Now as a ProTeam, Lotto-Dstny elected to not compete within the WorldTour races in Australia, the place within the final version of Tour Down Beneath they collected two dash wins by Ewan and the Willunga Hill stage victory with Matthew Holmes.
“A acutely aware alternative [was made] to have as many riders and workers as doable current at our first stage in January,” the crew stated to Het Laatste Nieuws, referring to the crew racing in France at Grand Prix Cycliste Marseille on January 29 and Etoile de Bessèges, February 1-5, after which a concentrate on Opening Weekend and the run of Classics.
Each of Australia’s WorldTour races have been final held in 2020, cancelled the previous two seasons as a result of world coronavirus pandemic. Along with the 2 levels within the Tour Down Beneath, Ewan completed seventh within the one-day race. His greatest end on the Nice Ocean Street Race was in 2019 when he was second behind winner Elia Viviani.
Ewan missed choice to signify Australia on the 2022 UCI Street World Championships, and was ‘heartbroken’ to be left off the crew on the occasion which was held on his house turf. The 266.9km course for the elite males’s highway race with nearly 4,000 metres of elevation achieve got here right down to a solo victory by Remco Evenepoel for Belgium with Christophe Laporte incomes silver for France and Michael Matthews taking bronze for Australia in a dash from the chasing group.
The 23-year-old Drizners final raced in his house nation in 2020 as a part of the US-based Continental crew, Hagens Berman Axeon, when he gained the U23 highway race title and was third greatest within the youth classification at Tour Down Beneath.
Sweeny, the 2016 junior time trial champion on the Oceania Continental Championships, made his final look on the Australian Street Nationwide Championships in 2019, the place he was twenty first within the U23 highway race.
