Caleb Ewan has sprinted to the second position in the fourth stage of the Tour de Korea. The Australian ORICA-GreenEDGE rider came close to his third victory in a row in Korea, but missed it by a half wheel. Paddy Bevin (Avanti Racing Team) claimed the stage win. Ewan maintains in the possession of the leader’s jersey, as well as the best young rider’s jersey.

The fourth stage of the Tour de Korea was a rather long one with its 204 kilometres, which were characterised by various climbs. The parcours proved to be an ideal one for an escape. The first half of the race knew many attacks, which were easily brought back until a group of five took off and created a gap of eight minutes.

ORICA-GreenEDGE rode strongly in the front to control the five escapees and to get Caleb Ewan safely over the climbs and to the finish. The group of escapees wasn’t caught until well into the final eight kilometres and that’s when the Australian outfit started to set up for the sprint.

Sports director David McPartland is positive about today’s results: “It seemed to be a very close finish. In fact, it was so close that at first I was told that Bevin had won, but then they told me Caleb had, so I decided to check. But the photo showed that Caleb was off by almost half a wheel. 

“Caleb is still in the leader’s jersey, so it’s a very positive day. Though we didn’t win, we got to take the jersey out of this finale. Not everything went according to plan, but the fact that we’ve still got the overall makes up for that.

“So far, the Tour de Korea has been a very controlled race. Our team, as well as Avanti and Drapac have been working hard to make sure the stages end in sprints, and that’s what we’ll go for again tomorrow.

“There’s a climb near the finish that, though it’s not huge, is very significant. It’s seems to be quite hard, even though it’s short, and my guess is it will have an impact on the GC. I expect some pretty aggressive racing tomorrow. We’ll have to make sure Caleb can stay with the bunch during that climb.”