Lotto Soudal's Caleb Yuan won for the fourth time in the last five editions of the Schwalbe Classic circuit race in Adelaide, South Australia, on Sunday evening. The Australian sprinter was about four car lengths ahead of Elia Viviani and Cofidis teammate Simone Consonni, who will be looking to make his mark on next week's Tour Down Under.

Between Tuesday and next Sunday, Ewan and his sprint rivals have up to four more chances to set up their positioning and lead-out trains correctly. Sunday's second-place Viviani announced that he was very happy with the way his teammates worked to set him up, but for Ewan and his Lotto Soudal team, it is a case of round one.

"We've put in a lot of hard work in the last few months and I wanted to continue the momentum from last year here," said Ewan after the awards ceremony, who won three stages in his debut Tour de France, two in the Giro d'Italia, and stage wins in the Tour of Turkey, UAE Tour, and ZLM Tour. He explained to journalists, recalling his 2019 season, in which he won the Brussels Cycling Classic, the last race of the year.

"I decided to start the year with a little more family and just train hard, instead of the Bay Critz or the All-Japan Championships. Tonight went well and I hope I can keep it up going into the Tour Down Under."

"I know that Bay Kritz and the All-Japan Championships will work for me because I have done them before. But last year I trained a lot and competed in Bay Kritz and Nationals. I think it will affect me later in the season, so did I really want to start the season with a full rotation in Australia, or did I want to relax and see what happens because it's a long season?

"It's different, especially now that I have to achieve goals in July that I didn't need before," he said, referring to his Tour de France debut last season with his new team, Lotto Soudal, having never been selected for the Tour with his previous team, Mitchelton-Scott He mentioned that it will be a long year. It's going to be a long year, and it's a little difficult to peak now and keep peaking throughout the season."

"I've only raced five days since last year's Tour. I've been away from racing for so long, I don't know what's going to happen to my legs, I've been away from racing for about five months, so I'm happy with my form."

The sprint in front of the enthusiastic home crowd was near perfect, but there was a bit of a hiccup just before Ewan made his final successful run.

"Roger Kluge let his wheels go and I had to make the decision to fly around him. I heard after the race he tried to open up a gap and jump me out, but at the time I didn't feel like waiting to see what he would do," the Australian laughed.

During the first half of Sunday's 30-lap, 51-km race, Ewan was in the back of the pack and moved up as the pace increased toward the end of the race.

"I actually sit at the back of the pack here every year," he said. 'I sit at the back of the pack and just cruise along. We sit at the back of the pack and just cruise. If you're at the back of the pack, instead of doing a lot of braking, you're free to move your wheels and take your own line through the corners. I think I actually saved a lot of energy, and if it gets hard at the back, I can always move up.

"It got a little slippery with the rain, but I think that's the same on most circuits. If there are painted lines on the road, it will always be a bit slippery.