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Trying to best his third place finish on yesterday's stage to Bayonne, Ewan managed to position himself well in the finale and showed an impressive kick to the line, but lost out to a charging Philipsen by half a wheel, the Belgian benefiting from a stellar Mathieu van der Poel lead-out to take his second straight stage win.
Ewan's teammate Jacopo Guarnieri was a casualty of one of the multiple crashes in the final three kilometres of the stage, but the rest of Lotto-DSTNY managed to keep their Australian sprinter safe towards the front and give him a great chance to contend at the finish.
It was another tough result for Ewan to swallow with two podiums but no wins to show for the first pure sprint opportunities of his Tour de France, showing good legs in both but now facing tough days in the Pyrenees before he can go again.
“Once again I felt fast and I almost got the stage win”, Ewan said following the stage.
“I know I’ve got the speed to win, but everything has to come together to do so. Although it’s a bitter second place, it’s nice to battle for the stage victory.
"I’m getting closer and I will keep on trying.”
“We knew it would be crucial to enter the circuit at the very front to stay out of trouble," Ewan said of the finale.
"The guys just did it perfectly and made sure that I could start my sprint relatively fresh.”
“With the crash of Jasper [De Buyst] and also Jacopo coming down today, we again needed to change plans. If I’m surfing wheels in the sprint, I also need a bit of luck to win. Hopefully we can take on the next opportunities at full strength.”
Ewan will now need to lean heavily on his squad to keep him safe in what will be two brutal days in the Pyrenees, as the peloton take on gruelling Pyrenean climbs including the Col de Soudet (15.2km at 7.2%) in Stage 5 and the mythical Col de Tourmalet (17.1km at 7.3%).
It's fortunate for Ewan these climbs are coming in the first week of the Tour, but will hopefully not expire the legs too much for him to get back to sprinting when Stage 7 comes around, a very flat parcours to Bordeaux.
