Australia’s Caleb Ewan stormed to his first Grand Tour stage win on the fifth day of the Vuelta a España as Team Sky’s Chris Froome moved closer to the overall race leader’s red jersey.
Ewan, riding for Orica-GreenEdge in his first year as a professional, blazed past John Degenkolb, the powerful Giant-Alpecin sprinter, and Peter Sagan, the in-form Slovak, following a perfect lead-out from his team-mates, including Mat Hayman, the former Team Sky domestique.
Esteban Chaves, Ewan’s team-mate, was caught out as the peloton split in the final kilometres of the 167.3km stage from Rota to Alcalá de Guadaíra on the outskirts of Seville, and ceded the race lead to Tom Dumoulin, of Giant-Alpecin.
Froome, who had earlier suffered a mechanical problem and had to be paced back to the main field by his team-mates, gained two seconds on Nairo Quintana, the Colombian who continues to jostle with Alejandro Valverde for the leadership of Movistar and climbed to seventh overall.
Tomorrow’s stage is a hilly, 200km route from Córdoba to Sierra de Cazorla, ending with a sharp, third-category climb of Alto de Cazorla.