Tour of the Basque Country: Ewan lives up to his position as favourite
Back then, still in the Lotto jersey, Ewan was one of the absolute elite among the fast men. But over time, he and the team grew apart. Even his return to the Australian team Jayco AlUla, from which he had come, did not make him happy. On the contrary: since the winter, there has been repeated talk of disputes in court. Ewan left the team after less than a year and joined Ineos Grenadiers late in January.
After the 30-year-old celebrated his first victory for the new team at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali, he is now also successful again at the highest level. Although there were no other real sprinters in the Basque Country, as evidenced by the second and third places for Luca Van Boven (Intermarché - Wanty) and Bastien Tronchon (Decathlon - AG2R), who are not specialists in their own right, it should certainly help the confidence of the sprinter, who is only 1.65 metres tall.
"This was the only stage of this tour where I thought I had a chance of winning. That's why I was under a lot of pressure to deliver," said Ewan in the final interview. "The team did a great job, we controlled the race from the start and did a great job. Then I just had to sprint."
Team-mates save Schachmann's lead
While Ewan ultimately spent a relaxed day, the same was basically true for Maximilian Schachmann (Soudal - Quick-Step) in the yellow jersey. "It was a marvellous day on the bike," said the Berlin, still happy about his biggest success in a long time the day after his time trial victory. But the joy almost turned into anger, because shortly before the 3-kilometre mark, Schachmann was stopped by a crash in front of him. "But with the help of my team-mates, I was able to catch up with the field again."
One of the helpers was Ethan Hayter, who sacrificed his own chances of victory. The British champion was one of the few riders who could have competed with Ewan in the run-up to the stage. In the meantime, Soudal had also taken over the chase to bring back the escapees and secure the sprint for Hayter.
There were no changes to the top 10 in the overall standings. Schachmann, Joao Almeida (UAE - Emirates - XRG) and Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe) in second and third place are still separated by just one second. Stage winner Ewan, who celebrated his 65th victory as a professional, took the green jersey, Diego Uriarte (Equipo Kern Pharma) the mountains classification.
This is how the 2nd stage of the Tour of the Basque Country 2025 went
In the morning before the start of the stage, the organisation initially came around the corner with a change to the route, which, however, played no role in the outcome of the stage, as the profile changed very little. The only change was the cancellation of the Alto de Oliva (3rd category) "for safety reasons" - according to Spanish media, the descent was said to be too dangerous - and a hill in the municipality of San Martin de Unx was added to the programme instead. This shortened the overall distance from just under 200 to 186 kilometres, although it remained the same as the original route for long stretches. Only 1400 metres in altitude had to be overcome.
From a sporting point of view, it was initially the Austrian Tobias Bayer (Alpecin - Deceuninck) who went clear with four Basques, including Uriarte, and stayed ahead of the peloton for most of the day. Their lead grew to three minutes. The escapees saved themselves until the last five kilometres. Before that, the day was fairly quiet. Uriarte had already secured the only mountain classification of the day after 47 kilometres and thus regularly took the mountain jersey, which he was already wearing by proxy.
Apart from that, it was only 19 kilometres before the finish that some unrest arose again, when Mauro Schmid (Team Jayco AlUla) stepped up the pace on the last wave and tried to go it alone, but was unable to pull out a gap. Instead, he only heralded the end of the breakaway group, whose lead then permanently shrank to under 30 seconds.
Campenaerts just manages to avoid a motorbike
When the catch seemed inevitable, Xabier Isasa (Euskaltel - Euskadi) dared to go it alone again. He made it to the 2-kilometre mark, but then had to watch the peloton fly past him. Shortly before that there was another bang. Victor Campenaerts (Visma | Lease a Bike) hit the gravel at the side of the road and threatened to crash into a parked police motorbike. Although he was able to avoid the vehicle, he still crashed and took one or two other professionals with him.
Meanwhile, the final sprint preparations were underway. Ineos formed up and was joined by Intermarché - Wanty for the last 800 metres. However, Boven, a newcomer to the pro peloton, was ultimately beaten by the experienced Ewan.
