ORICA-GreenEDGE will make their debut appearance at the Tour de Korea, looking for stage wins on a course that is likely to present a number of opportunities for neo-pro sprinter Caleb Ewan.

Ewan, who has Korean ancestry, will be strongly supported at the eight-day race starting this Sunday by the Australian outfit’s developing sprint team; including Adam Blythe, Mitch Docker and Leigh Howard.

“First and foremost our goals centre around stage wins,” sport director David McPartland said. “We have several options for this with our sprinter Caleb but also with some guys that can win from a break if needed.

“Caleb has been going well and is settling into his first season in a WorldTour team well. He has a great team around him in Korea and I expect him to continue his development into a world class sprinter.

“Sure the general classification is always a goal but for us here it’s secondary to winning stages. We will assess the overall opportunity day by day.”

McPartland expects an aggressive series of stages, but said the team heading to Korea is ready to make an impact.

“Typically, any race is Asia tends to be raced very aggressively and I don’t expect this race to be any different,” McPartland said.

“We go with a team that are motivated to be racing in Korea so that will suit us.”

ORICA-GreenEDGE at the Tour de Korea (7-14 June):

Adam Blythe
Mitch Docker
Caleb Ewan
Michael Hepburn
Leigh Howard
Jens Mouris