Caleb Ewan (Orica-BikeExchange) proved that he is ready to lead Australia at the World Championships when he crushed the opposition in the bunch sprint on the final stage of the Tour of Britain. After Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal) had got an unexpected gap due to a mechanical for André Greipel, the Australian launched an impressive sprint to blast past all his rivals and cross the line with a big gap to second-placed Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo), with Debusschere holding on for third place. Stephen Cummings (Dimension Data) finished safely and so won the race ahead of Rohan Dennis (BMC) and Tom Dumoulin (Giant-Alpecin).

Having been the dominant sprinter at the U23 scene, Caleb Ewan started his pro career with huge expectations. When he signed for Orica-BikeExchange for the 2015 season, the team did nothing to hide that they wanted to build their sprint future around the youngster.

Ewan got his career off to a great start as he won numerous races in his first year at the pro level, including a stage in the Vuelta a Espana. That increased the expectations for 2016 but his second year has been a lot harder.

Ewan started well with two wins at the Tour Down Under but when he returned to Europe, his drought started. He failed to win a stage in the Giro d’Italia and in fact he hasn’t won a single race in the continent when he lined up for the EuroEyes Cyclassics in late August.

The race in Hamburg marked a turnaround for Ewan. After the relegation of Nacer Bouhanni, he was given his first classics win and since then he has been flying. In this week’s Tour of Britain, he has been sprinting very well but his efforts have been left unrewarded. In stage 5, he was clearly the fastest in the peloton but he missed out on victory by centimetres when a break just managed to stay away.

That left him with just one chance to go for glory and so he was in a determined mood for today’s final stage in London. In the end, things worked out perfectly as he took a hugely dominant win to end his race on a high.

It briefly looked like he was out of contention when a late mechanical for André Greipel created a big gap to his lead-out man Jens Debusschere. That forced Ewan to go from afar but as soon as he took off, his impressive kick allowed him to take a dominant win ahead of Dylan Groenewegen and Debusschere.

After yesterday’s double stage, the sprinters were expected to come to the fore in the big finale in the heart of London where they tackled the same circuit that was used last year. It was 6.2km long and was done 16 times for an overall distance of 100km. It was completely flat and didn’t have any major technical challenges. However, the final kilometre was tricky as there is a roundabout with 600m to go and then a sharp turn just 300m from the line. There were bonus seconds on offer at the end of the 4th, 8th and 12th lap.

The riders had sunny conditions when they lined up for the start and as soon as the flag was dropped, the attacking started. Thomas Stewart (Madison Genesis) was the first to try and he was joined by Taylor Phinney (BMC), Jasper Bovenhuis (An Post) and Gabriel Cullaigh (Great Britain). The quartet quickly got a small advantage but numerous riders tried to bridge across. However, the action didn’t last long and already halfway through the first lap, the peloton slowed down. The gap quickly started to grow and it was evident that the beak had been formed.

At the first passage of the line, the front quartet had an advantage of around 30 seconds but the peloton had already gone back up to speed. Orica-BikeExchange had gathered their troops on the front as Robert Power and Amets Txurruka had stated to chase and it didn’t take long for Bert-Jan Lindeman, Paul Martens (LottoNL-Jumbo) and James Shaw (Lotto Soudal) to joined forces with them. During the second lap, the quartet kept the gap at around 25 seconds.

During the next lap, ONE also a rider to the group of chasers and the gap was kept at 25 seconds as they went around the circuit for the third and fourth time. At the same time, Chris Latham (Wiggins) was forced to abandon.

At the end of the fourth lap, Bovenhuis beat Cullaigh and Stewart in the first intermediate sprint to virtually secure the win in the sprints competition before Martens, Lindeman, Power, Txurruka, Shaw and the ONE rider led the peloton across the line just 25 seconds later. Dimension Data then took over with all six riders lined out on the front as Johann van Zyl and Jay Thomson set the pace.

The gap started to grow slightly as it was 43 seconds at the end of the sixth lap and had gone out to 57 seconds one lap later. At the midpoint of the race, Bovenhuis beat Stewart and Phinney in the second intermediate sprint while the peloton arrived 50 seconds later.

LottoNL-Jumbo and Lotto Soudal returned to the front with Lindeman, Martens and Shaw who Thomson and van Zyl a hand, keeping the gap at 50 second at the next passage of the line. After 10 laps, it was still 46 seconds and this prompted the peloton to increase the speed. That was too much for Bovenhuis who was left behind with 30km to go where the gap had dropped to 35 seconds.

LottoNL-Jumbo, Lotto Soudal and Orica-BikeExchange were in control and continued to slowly bring the gap down. With four laps to go, it was 34 seconds and one lap later it was only 18 seconds.

With 14km to go, the gap was down to 10 seconds and the entire Etixx-QuickStep team was lined out on the front. Phinney gave it one last shot and only Stewart could follow. The pair crossed the line to start the penultimate lap with an advantage of just 6 seconds. Julien Vermote led the Etixx-QuickStep to the finish.

After the passage of the line, Stewart briefly got distanced but he managed to rejoin his Phinney who was going full gas. The pair dug deep to maintain their 5-second advantage.

With 5km to go, Alex Dowsett (Movistar) suddenly came flying past the two leaders who were attentive to grab his wheel. Howeverm they coldn’t resist the Etixx-QuickStep train which was now led by Tony Martin. With 8.5km to go, the junction ws made and even though Stewart made last desperate attempt, it was soon all back together.

Lotto Soudal briefly hit the front with Jasper De Buyst before the ONE team took over, lining out three riders on the front as they sped towards the finish. However, they were unable to respond when a Caja Rural rider launched a solo attack and the Spaniard started the final lap with an advantage of a few seconds.

ONE kept riding on the front until Martin again took over for Etixx-QuickStep and he brought the lone attacker back when they hit the final 5km. The winner of the time trial strung the group and led the field for almost 3km before he swung off.

Sky took control with Ian Stannard leading Ben Swift while Etixx-QukckStep sprinter Maximilano Richeze moved into third position, followed by Steele Von Hoff (ONE), Danny Van Poppel and Elia Viviani (Sky). Swift took over and held the front position until he was passed by Tom Leezer (LottoNL-Jumbo) in the final U-tunrn with 1200m to go.

Passing the flamme rouge, Van Poppel tried to do the lead-out for Viviani but they were passed by the Lotto Soudal trio of Marcel Sieberg, Jens Debusschere and André Greipel. Sieberg took a massive turn before Debusschere did the final lead-out.

Just before the final turn, Greipel had a mechanical problem and as he had to slow down, Debusschere suddenly had a big gap. The Belgian sped through corner and it looked like he had a decisive advantage.

Boy Van Poppel (Trek) had to launch a long sprint as he tried to get back on terms with Debusschere who still had a big gap when he exited the final turn. That’s when Dylan Groenewegen and Caleb Ewan launched their sprints and with an impressive turn of speed, the latter flew past both the Dutch champion and Debusschere. His rivals were not even close to him and he had plenty of time to celebrate the victory, with Groenewegen and Debusschere completing the podium.

Stephen Cummings had no issues on the stage and so took the overall with a 26-second advantage over Rohan Dennis, with Tom Dumoulin 12 seconds further back in third. Groenewegen won the points competition, Xandro Meurisse (Wanty) was the best climber, Bovenhuis took the sprints jersey and Sky were the best team.

With the Tour of Britain done and dusted, the British season has come to an end. Attention now moves back to the European mainland for a series of one-day races and the European Championships next week.