No other neo-pro gained so much media attention in the opening weeks of 2015 season as Caleb Ewan, and very likely for a good reason as the 20-year old Australian has a great chance of becoming the most successful freshman of the year. Wisely groomed by his Orica-GreenEDGE team, young sprinter follows a confidence-building programme and even though he is yet to claim his first stage victory at Tour de Langkawi, such success may arrive even today.

In the first two stages of the Malaysian event Ewan was beaten by the most successful rider in its history, Andrea Guardini. The Italian sprinter himself admitted, though, that his younger rival comes closer every day and so the 20-year old Australian has all reasons to believe in his chances of claiming a confidence-boosting victory in upcoming days.

“I tried to come off him this time but he’s still too quick in the end,” said Ewan post-race on Monday. “I’m gonna have to try to figure out something else to beat him as he’s going quite well at the moment.”

The young Orica-GreenEDGE sprinter agreed that claiming a stage win in Malaysia would possitively influence his confidence before clashing with the best sprinters of the professional peloton in Europe.

“A good result here would boost my confidence going into Europe,” Ewan told VeloNews. “Plus, its pretty cool to come here to a race where there are some good guys to sprint against.”

He acknowledges, however, that fine-tuning his lead-out train consisting of such specialists as Adam Blythe or Leigh Howard is just as important as collecting victories, and Tour de Langkawi provides with a perfect opportunity do get things right.

“There are quite a few sprint stages and we have time to really work out the order we want to conduct leadouts and learn how to work together, and I think Langkawi is better suited for us to develop our chemistry rather than say [Volta a] Catalunya or [Tour of] Turkey, where the field may be even deeper and the pressure higher.”