Like all great performers, Caleb Ewan bowed out leaving fans wanting more

Source : ABC NEWS

Caleb Ewan’s retirement from the professional peloton, with immediate effect, has taken the majority of the sport by surprise.

Aged just 30, the pocket rocket from Sydney looked to have rediscovered himself at an Ineos Grenadiers team that itself was undergoing something of a metamorphosis in 2025.

Two bunch sprints. Two wins.

A career reborn?

Sadly not, another “what if” in a career that has, unfortunately, been dogged by them.

Ewan has — despite managing to resurrect a career that looked to be petering out last season — stuck with a performers golden rule of leaving them wanting more.

However, most importantly, there was a sentence in the midst of his unfailingly honest and open retirement statement that hit home more than any other and shows that if the heart is not in it, there’s little point in continuing.

“What once felt like everything to me no longer does,” he wrote.

“The truth is that even when I crossed the line first, that feeling — the one you chase for years — faded quicker than it used to.”

In the furious and frantic world of high-level sprinting, if the heart is not there, then the immeasurable risks are certainly not worth it.

The timing of this announcement will surprise plenty.

Ewan has never been one to conform though.

When he burst onto the scene as a precocious youngster at the 2015 Herald Sun Tour and the 2016 Tour Down Under, there was nothing orthodox about his sprinting style.

Crouched impossibly low over his handlebars, leaning so far forward it looked almost as if he was dragging his bike along behind him, Ewan seemingly popped his way out of the chaos of the charging peloton like a cork from the champagne that would invariably flow soon after he crossed the line.

His 65 career victories tell part of his story. The way he won them says the rest.

Bouncing behind and through opposition sprint trains, weaving Mark Cavendish-like into minuscule gaps before dropping the power to surge home, Ewan often had to fend for himself, a 165cm will-o’-the-wisp appearing at the front of the pack at the key moment.

Ewan used his diminutive size to superb effect, standing as one of the giants of sprinting.

Contemporaries André Greipel (183cm), Fabio Jakobsen (181cm), Sam Bennett (178cm), Elia Viviani (177cm), Dylan Groenewegen (177cm) Jasper Phillipsen (176cm) and Mark Cavendish (175cm) all towered over the Sydneysider — not that it mattered when they were on the steps below him on the podium.

“For as long as I can remember, my world has revolved around racing,” Ewan wrote in his retirement statement.

“The intense routine, the sacrifice, the search for constant improvement, the hunger to win — it’s been my rhythm, my identity.

“The last few years haven’t been easy but in 2025 I found something again — not just legs, but belief — thanks to the Ineos Grenadiers. They gave me space, trust, and the environment to rediscover what I am capable of.

“I won again. I felt like myself again and I felt respected again. For that, I can’t thank them enough.”

Winning as a sprinter is everything.

And winning was something Ewan was good at.

He is, after all, one of just 111 riders in the history of the sport who has claimed victory in each of cycling’s three grand tours in the 90 years the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a España have all co-existed, with five victories at the Tour de France, five at the Giro and one at the Vuelta.

He is one of just five, alongside Simon Gerrans, Michael Matthews, Rohan Dennis and, last year, Ben O’Connor, to have done so from Australia.

And yet there have always been disappointments too.

Twice Ewan came agonisingly close to winning the sprinters monument, Milano-Sanremo, finishing behind Jasper Stuyven in 2021 and, in 2018, winning the bunch sprint behind Vincenco Nibali’s bold solo win.

Earlier in his career, despite his impressive form in the sprints in minor races, it took a move to Lotto Soudal in 2019 before he was given his first crack at the Tour de France.

His inclusion was instantly vindicated, winning three stages having also won two at that year’s Giro — the first sign of many “what ifs” that may come to define his career.

Ewan competed at every Tour between then and 2023, but won his last stage at cycling’s most high profile race in 2020. His last grand tour win came the following year at the Giro d’Italia, although he did manage two second place finishes at the Giro and Tour in subsequent seasons.

Those diminishing returns led to a total breakdown in trust between himself and the Belgian team, prompting a move back to GreenEdge.

There, things went from bad to worse.

At the 2024 Giro, where Ewan finished no higher than sixth in bunch sprints, GreenEdge allowed German rider Max Walscheid — Ewan’s lead-out man following Luka Mezgec’s withdrawal — to sprint against him.

It was described as “bonkers” by Ineos rider Geraint Thomas, as “a pretty shitty situation” by Ewan himself.

“My experiences of the past two seasons, in particular the second half of 2024, has taken a significant toll on my relationship with the sport,” Ewan said in his statement.

“I’m happy I didn’t let that period define the end of my career and I am proud of what I achieved in a short but successful time with the Ineos Grenadiers.”

What he did achieve, those two wins against a questionable standard of opposition at the Itzulia Basque Country and the Settimana Internazionale Coppi e Bartali, offered a glimpse at a revival.

But, instead, we’re left with another what if — albeit from the entirely understandable position of not wanting to go on if his heart is not in it.

Cycling commentator Matthew Keenan told ABC Sport in Adelaide earlier this year that he “would hate for him [Ewan] to finish his career thinking that he’s left anything on the table”.

Whether he did leave any major wins on the table will be one of the great unknowns.

But given that from his perspective the cupboard was well and truly bare, one cannot fault his choice.