Jesse Ewart, the Australian-born rider who has declared for Ireland, consolidated his general classification position today and moved one step closer to the yellow jersey at the Tour du Rwanda.
“Today’s stage was far from easy but after a decisive GC stage yesterday our plan was to consolidate our overall positions and try to save as much energy before these last few difficult days,” Ewart told stickybottle of his Bike Aid team after both he and team mate Henok Mulubrhan made the seven-rider breakaway yesterday.
“The yellow jersey was dropped today on the HC climb (7.5km crested with 25km to go) so all of Bike Aid pushed the pace for the last 30km , bringing in the breakaway and trying to set myself and Henok up for a stage win or to gain some GC time.
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“I had a crack at 2.5km to
go but to no avail. I was caught inside the last km and then just made sure to
maintain contact with the front group. It was still a tough day out but I’m in
6th in GC, with my team mate in 5th and with a nice buffer to the rest of the
peloton. Hopefully we can continue this
throughout the week. But there’s some big mountains yet to come.”
Ewart (27) placed 17th on the 124.3km stage from Kigali to Gicumbi, with the race splitting to pieces on undulating terrain; the teams of the well-placed riders putting the hammer down when race leader, and yesterday's winner, Jhonatan Restrepo (Drone Hopper-Androni Giocattoli) got into difficulty and lost over 10 minutes.
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While a breakaway group containing Pierre Rolland (B&B Hotels-KTM), among others, was clear for much of the day, the peloton split in the closing stages and what remained of the bunch caught the escape group in the finale, with Ewart's Bike Aid doing much of the chasing.
After Ewart attacked late and was caught, South African Kent Main (ProTouch) jumped from the group and went solo to the finish where he just about held off the chasers to win the stage. Anatoliy Budyak (Terengganu Polygon) just broke clear of the chasing group to finish in 2nd at two seconds.
The group just behind him, numbering about 30 riders, split in the closing kilometres as the race finished on a 5.4km climb with an average gradient of 4.4 per cent, the fifth climb of the day.
Ewart was 17th, last man of the 15 riders all credited with the same time just three seconds behind the winner. And that was enough for him to consolidate his position in the standings. He is now up to 6th overall, some 23 seconds down on new race leader Axel Laurance (B&B Hotels-KTM).
